Discussion: The first viable encapsulants or use of the term

[Shawn Forsythe]

Item for discussion.

Around early 2005, the first viable competition to Whittaker's Crystal Dry started to show up. Until that point, the term "encapsulation" or "encapsulant" had not really been a term well known to our industry. in fact, even Whittaker was not yet officially using the term at that time.

Does anyone have any information that predates 2005, wherein any company or group either used the term "encapsulation" to describe the method widely known now as encapsulation?

Second, would anyone find that "encapsulation" is a marketing term, subsequently hijacked by others, that was originated by an entity that deserves origination credit?





p.s. Jimmy is respectfully asked not to comment.

 

[hogjowl]

We need a Nava search.

 

[Ken Snow]

Shawn, we were using it internally and of our customers long before I started working here in 1980. My guess is we were using the term in the 50's or 60's but I don't have any documentation of that that I can put my hands on easily.

 

[Shawn Forsythe]

I suppose I should indicate that I am asking in reference to how it is used today. Unless there were actual friable polymers in the 50's-80's. In short, I may not equating encapsulation to the shampoo and dry foam surfactants of yore.

 

[Ken Snow]

Ok- might want modify or initial post.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[The Great Oz]

The term has been in use in multiple industries and the scientific community for a long time. Programmers use it to describe a method of information hiding.

Since DuPont had already trademarked a hundred key phrases before their commercial maintenance program was even off the ground, I'd guess the term was in use in the cleaning industry prior to 1997 or DuPont would have trademarked it as well. It was definitely a term used by DuPont in 1997. In response to complaints by their francisees about too-low maintenance pricing, they found a way for a service provider to "run through jobs" and "not worry about where the dirt went" by adding Teflon to shampoo. They presented a case study using carpet in a Disney resort (measuring clean by light reflectance) and showed an applicating machine that looked like an electric lawnmower... and demonstrating that you could literally run through a job with it.

I can't remember the name on the gallon that sat in my office for years, but it had a dark green label and 'encap' was part of the product name. If you search archives of some of the older BBs you may find discussions of this topic. Jeff Bishop had some involvement with DuPont and their program as well, so may have more specific information.

PS: Or ask someone with DuPont. (slaps forehead)

 

[hogjowl]

I can't wait until this is sussed out.

 

[encapman]

Item for discussion.

Around early 2005, the first viable competition to Whittaker's Crystal Dry started to show up. Until that point, the term "encapsulation" or "encapsulant" had not really been a term well known to our industry. in fact, even Whittaker was not yet officially using the term at that time.

Does anyone have any information that predates 2005, wherein any company or group either used the term "encapsulation" to describe the method widely known now as encapsulation?

Second, would anyone find that "encapsulation" is a marketing term, subsequently hijacked by others, that was originated by an entity that deserves origination credit?

If the search function on the original ICS board was still intact, you could find that I was the first person to publicly use the term encapsulation in relation to a crystallizing polymer process for carpet cleaning. In fact, the day after I first coined the phrase "encapsulation" online to describe this cleaning method, Bob Wittkamp called me and asked me about it. Bob then went on to write the first trade journal article about encapsulation. Prior to that, Whittaker had referred to their Crystal Dry detergent as "crystallizing", but NOT as an encapsulation detergent. And a few other companies had begun to dabble into this new type of cleaning too. But the word "encapsulation" had not been used to describe this type of chemistry in our industry prior to my first message board post about encapsulation on the ICS board back in 2002. I didn't invent the concept of encapsulation, but I was the first person to attach the name to it. Not trying to toot my own horn, but that's how it played out a decade ago.

 

[David VB]

If the search function on the original ICS board was still intact, you could find that I was the first person to publicly use the term encapsulation in relation to a crystallizing polymer process for carpet cleaning. In fact, the day after I first coined the phrase "encapsulation" online to describe this cleaning method, Bob Wittkamp called me and asked me about it. Bob then went on to write the first trade journal article about encapsulation. Prior to that, Whittaker had referred to their Crystal Dry detergent as "crystallizing", but NOT as an encapsulation detergent. And a few other companies had begun to dabble into this new type of cleaning too. But the word "encapsulation" had not been used to describe this type of chemistry in our industry prior to my first message board post about encapsulation on the ICS board back in 2002. I didn't invent the concept of encapsulation, but I was the first person to attach the name to it. Not trying to toot my own horn, but that's how it played out a decade ago.

That is how I remember it. I read that ICS article from Bob Whittkamp. I had bought a Cimex in about 1983 and was really interested in anything that could enable me to make better and more use of it. Changed my business for the better.

 

[Mikey P]

Rick, perhaps a front page article here about your place in the history and development of "it all" would make for some good reading...



I'm glad to see so many posting here who were on ICS back in the day. Its a good feeling knowing that I've kept the group alive (that Evan did his best to kill off).

 

[Desk Jockey]

Rick you are the first as I remember it also.

While I won't say you were the first to promote the Cimex, you were the first to do so on the next level. I remember getting SCT flyers on the Cimex in the late 70's Ed was on the right but didn't have all the pieces yet. Putting all the pieces together with your chemistry, fiber pads and the Cimex was pure genius! You're one smart cookie!

 

[J Scott W]

I first came across the technology of using polymers in the middle or late 1990s with Dupont's commercial floor cleaning division, I think it was called TASKI but I am not sure about that. Then saw a different approach when I worked with CTI about 1997 with their ARA anti-wicking product.

The first time I heard encapsulation used to describe this was Rick's post on ICS.

 

[Larry Cobb]

Hi Scott;

DuPont developed ResisTech (tm) in 2001 or 2002.

Article from early 2002:

http://www.buildings.com/article-de...r-replacement-with-maintenance-solutions.aspx

We developed Dynachem Encapsulate shortly after that (4/2002), with the help of a polymer chemist.

Rick was an early customer, before he developed his version.

ICS archive should have plenty of posts.

Larry

 

[encapman]

I came up with the word Encapsulation while talking with a good friend of mine - Don Forbes. Don has a very analytical mind. We were talking together about the role that polymers play in cleaning. Through the course of that conversation we landed on the term encapsulation as a way to describe what was occurring. So although I didn't invent the concept of encapsulation - I was the first person to bring the term "encapsulation" to our industry.

I began discussing what I was doing in my cleaning business, and in early 2002 on the ICS board I described my cleaning process as "encapsulation". Moving forward the discussions opened up and I got a lot of feedback from people (mostly negative I might add). I took a lot of heat from the mainly truckmount crowd back in those days.

I had also done a lot of research at the time and had discovered that quite a few companies were using this type of cleaning technology - but no one had yet named it "encapsulation". In fact it seemed that most of these companies (such as DuPont with their Resistech program) were being fairly incognito about it, almost like they were trying to fly under the radar not wanting their actual technology be discovered by the masses.

Here is a link to one of my early posts on the ICS board about "encapsulation" as I was calling it. Although this wasn't the first post I had made about encapsulation, I believe this post was the one that really got the ball rolling with the word "encapsulation".

http://www.cleanrestoreconnect.com/forums/topic/34993/encapsulation-explained

As you can see, I had links to a few companies that were employing versions of encapsulation. Like I said, I didn't invent the idea of encapsulation. I simply was the first person to put a name on it. Too bad I didn't trademark the term "encapsulation cleaning" - I'd be rich by now.

I also stumbled across a couple of other newish ideas: The Cimex had been languishing with little interest. Very few were being sold. It was basically a sleeper. I was aware of its scrubbing ability and had originally thought of taking a CImex and building a Chemstractor out of one. But as I explored working with crystallizing detergents, I saw that it wasn't necessary to add an extraction ring to the Cimex. I could see that the Cimex was the king when it comes to scrubbing commercial carpet. And again I shared what I was observing. So I also played a role in putting the Cimex more on the map for this type of cleaning.

And lastly: The common way to scrub a carpet back in the day was to use a shampoo brush. However I had heard of using floor buffing pads to scrub carpet. In fact that's what I had been using on Chemstractor machines prior to switching over to the Cimex. I appreciated the benefit of using a more even scrubbing surface from the pads as opposed to brushes. I shared that idea with the industry too, and it has gained popularity.

So those are my 3 small contributions: (1) Coining the phrase "encapsulation" and helping to make the method of cleaning popular. (2) Promoting the Cimex and making it popular for commercial carpet cleaning. And (3) Making the use of pads popular for carpet scrubbing.

All of this led to my developing the Releasit brand of encap products (along with the help of some good chemists), as well as FiberPlus brand of pads, and Excellent Supply.
It's been fun! To quote the Grateful Dead... "What a long strange trip it's been"

 

[Mikey P]

Hi Scott;

DuPont developed ResisTech (tm) in 2001 or 2002.

Article from early 2002:

http://www.buildings.com/article-de...r-replacement-with-maintenance-solutions.aspx

We developed Dynachem Encapsulate shortly after that (4/2002), with the help of a polymer chemist.

Rick was an early customer, before he developed his version.

ICS archive should have plenty of posts.

Larry

Isn't that product a "Film Former" rather than a Pixie Duster?

 

[Desk Jockey]

Thanks Rick, your "little " contribution has changed they way many of see commercial carpet cleaning. Much appreciated!

 

[Larry Cobb]

Isn't that product a "Film Former" rather than a Pixie Duster?

DuPont developed a film-former . . .

and they were the pioneers.

Without a film coating . . .,

encap would be removed after the first vacuum operation.

Larry