Amylase
The enzyme for starch — the invisible half of a food stain, and the part that makes a plate feel faintly tacky after washing.
In detail
An amylase breaks starch down into soluble sugars. Starch is a large part of most food soil and it behaves differently from fat and from protein: it is not greasy, so a surfactant has little purchase on it, and when it dries it forms a hard, adherent film rather than a visible mark. That film is why an amylase matters in dishwashing as much as in laundry. Potato, pasta, rice, sauces and gravies leave starch that can survive a wash invisibly and then attract and hold further soil, producing crockery that looks clean and feels slightly rough or tacky, and fabric that greys evenly over repeated washes. Declared on a label as part of the enzyme class, irrespective of concentration.
Why
- Amylase is explained by Enzymes in cleaning
Sources for this page
Sources
Regulation (EC) No 648/2004 on detergents, Annex VII — labelling and ingredient data sheet
European Parliament and Council, as retained in UK law (legislation.gov.uk), 2004 · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That the class must be declared on a detergent label irrespective of its concentration. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — Annex VII section A, the weight-range list and the declare-regardless list. Supports the claim as stated. Enumerates the ingredient-class family completely, and supplies the vocabulary a reader is actually confronted with on the back of a bottle.
Handbook of Detergents (Surfactant Science Series)
CRC Press / Taylor & Francis · Reference work
Relied on for: That amylases hydrolyse starch soils into soluble sugars and are used in laundry and automatic dishwashing formulations. (background and mechanism only)
Verification: the work exists and is described correctly. Nobody has yet read the specific passage.
Last reviewed by a person on .