Lever Brothers Company, Division of Conopco, Inc.

Roland Wilhelmus Pomeren

Andreas Theodorus Groot

Cornelis Paulus Montanus

Johannes Hendrikus Akkermans

Michael Frederick Edwards

Korkut Ahmet Yuregir

A granular detergent product is made by spraying a liquid binder to contact a particulate solid starting material in a low shear granulator such as a fluidized bed apparatus. The d average droplet diameter of the liquid binder is not greater than ten times the d average particle diameter of that fraction of the solid starting material which has a d particle diameter of from 20 &mgr;m to 200 &mgr;m provided that if more than 90% by weight of the solid starting material has a d average particle diameter less than 20 &mgr;m then the d average particle diameter of the total solid starting materials shall be taken to be 20 &mgr;m. If more than 90% by weight of the solid starting material has a d average particle diameter greater than 200 &mgr;m than the d average particle diameter of the total starting solid material shall be taken to be 200 &mgr;m.

Production of detergent granulates

A granular detergent product is made by spraying a liquid binder to contact a particulate solid starting material in a low shear granulator such as a fluidised bed apparatus. The d,average droplet diameter is not greater than ten times the d,average particle diameter of that fraction of the solid starting material which has a d,particle diameter of from 20 &mgr;m to 200 &mgr;m provided that if more than 90% by weight of the solid starting material has a d,average particle diameter less than 20 &mgr;m then the d,average particle diameter of the total solid starting materials shall be taken to be 20 &mgr;m. If more than 90% by weight of the solid starting material has a d,average particle diameter greater than 200 &mgr;m then the d,average particle diameter of the total starting solid material shall be taken to be 200 &mgr;m.

A process of forming a granular detergent products, is effected in a gas fluidisation granulator. A fluidised particulate solid material is contacted with a spray of liquid binder. The excess velocity (U.sub.e) of fluidisation gas relative to the mass or volume flux of the spray (q.sub.mliq or q.sub.vliq) when determined at the normalised nozzle-to-bed distance (D.sub.0) is set so that the flux number (FN.sub.m or FN.sub.v) as determined by ##EQU1## (where .rho..sub.p is the particle density) is at a critical value of at least 2 for at least 30% of the process.

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Vlaardingen, Netherlands

Roland Wilhelmus Pomeren