Eli5: Do laundy detergents disinfect/sanitize clothes or does it just remove dirt?
In: Chemistry
[This study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9290578/)^(1) looks at the different effects of washing and drying practices. It looks like washing on high heat is more effective, but to kill certain of the more robust viruses and bacteria, you’d need to wash with chlorine bleach.
The drying process, however, kills more germs than washing alone, in particular when you dry on high heat for a long duration.
^(1(Although some enveloped viruses, such as SARS‐CoV‐2 and influenza, and Gram‐negative bacteria may survive high wash water temperatures, they are relatively sensitive to the action of detergents, which can eliminate such organisms even in median cold‐water wash conditions. Enteric viruses, and some bacteria and fungi, however, may require hot water washes with chlorine bleach, and high settings on dryers to achieve targeted reductions (Gerba & Kennedy, 2007; Heinzel et al., 2010). ^(Heinzel et al. (2010 found that while enveloped viruses were inactivated by >99.99% by washing textiles at 20℃, temperatures of 30–40℃ along with a sanitizing detergent (activated oxygen) were necessary for the nonenveloped viruses (Heinzel et al., 2010). Both chlorine bleach and activated oxygen sanitizers result in a greater reduction of pathogens in textiles (Shin et al., 2020; Gerba, unpublished). However, caution should be used with chlorine bleach as it can damage many synthetic and synthetic‐natural blend textiles. Machine‐drying also provides an additional barrier, with both temperature and duration playing a role. Drying is recognized as an inextricably linked step in the washing process that significantly reduces germ load on fabrics (Brands et al., 2016). Brands et al. (2016) evaluated a variety of nonpathogenic and opportunistic bacteria and fungi and their log reduction factors (ranging from 1 to 4 log10) following different drying methods. Higher temperature settings and length of drying can significantly reduce microbial numbers (Munk et al., 2001; Gerba, unpublished).))
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