Editing Dry cleaning (section)

==History==
[[File:Donini dry cleaning machines (Bologna) 3.jpg|thumb|Italian dry cleaning machine used in France in the 1960s]]
{{expand section|better historical coverage and citations|date=March 2023}}
The ancient Greeks and Romans had some waterless methods to clean textiles, involving the use of powdered chemicals and absorbent clay ([[fuller's earth]]).{{citation needed|date=March 2023}} By the 1700s, the French were using [[turpentine]]-based solvents for specialized cleaning.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

Modern solvent-based dry cleaning may have originated in 1821 with American entrepreneur [[Thomas L. Jennings]]. Jennings referred to his method as "dry scouring".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Johnson|first=Shontavia|title=America's always had black inventors – even when the patent system explicitly excluded them|url=http://theconversation.com/americas-always-had-black-inventors-even-when-the-patent-system-explicitly-excluded-them-72619|access-date=2021-06-19|website=The Conversation|date=15 February 2017|language=en|archive-date=2017-02-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215194916/http://theconversation.com/americas-always-had-black-inventors-even-when-the-patent-system-explicitly-excluded-them-72619|url-status=live}}</ref>

French dye-works operator Jean Baptiste Jolly<ref name="Ogunseitan2011">{{cite book|author=Oladele Ogunseitan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eCt1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA135|title=Green Health: An A-to-Z Guide|date=3 May 2011|publisher=SAGE Publications|isbn=978-1-4522-6621-3|pages=135–}}</ref>{{efn|In some sources incorrectly<ref name="Prince1965">{{cite book|author=Ancliffe Prince|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oy1BAAAAYAAJ|title=Laundering and Cleaning: Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow|publisher=Iliffe Technical Publications|year=1965|quote=In Britain America the discovery was for long attributed to a supposed Paris tailor by name of Jolly-Belin [...] Actually the discoverer of drycleaning was not named Jolly-Belin but Jean-Baptiste Jell}}</ref> referred to as "Jolly-Belin"}} developed his own method using [[kerosene]] and [[gasoline]] to clean fabrics.<ref name="Ogunseitan2011"/> He opened the first dry cleaning service in Paris in 1845.<ref name="Information1986">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gu6wFrdExO4C&pg=PA33|title=New Scientist|date=13 February 1986|publisher=Reed Business Information|pages=33–|issn=0262-4079}}{{Dead link|date=February 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Flammability concerns led William Joseph Stoddard, a dry cleaner from [[Atlanta]], to develop in 1924 [[Stoddard solvent]] (white spirit) as a slightly less [[flammable]] alternative to gasoline-based solvents.

The use of highly flammable petroleum solvents caused many fires and explosions, resulting in government regulation of dry cleaners.

===Shift to chlorinated solvents===
After [[World War I]], dry cleaners began using [[organochloride|chlorinated]] solvents. These solvents were much less flammable than petroleum solvents and had improved cleaning power.{{Citation needed|date=January 2018}} Early solvents were [[carbon tetrachloride]] and [[trichloroethylene]] (TCE). Carbon tetrachloride was first used as a stain remover in the early 1890s in Germany. TCE was introduced in 1930, it had the downside of being incompatible with acetate dyes and it was later replaced by perchloroethylene which was introduced in 1933.<ref name=Morrison>Morrison, R. D.; Murphy, B. L. (2015). Chlorinated Solvents: A Forensic Evaluation. UK: Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 9781782626077.</ref>

By the mid-1930s, the dry cleaning industry had started to use [[perchloroethylene]] (tetrachloroethylene) as the solvent. It has excellent cleaning power and is nonflammable and compatible with most garments. Because it is stable, perchloroethylene is readily recycled.<ref name="Ullmann2000">{{cite book |doi=10.1002/14356007.a09_049|chapter=Dry Cleaning |title=Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry |year=2000 |last1=Tirsell |first1=David C. |isbn=3527306730 }}</ref>

===Infrastructure===
From the customer's perspective, dry cleaning businesses are either "plants" or "drop shops". The former does on-site cleaning, while a drop shop receives garments from customers, sends them to a large plant, and then has the cleaned garments returned to the shop for pickup by the customer. The latter setup minimized the risk of fire or dangerous fumes created by the cleaning process. At the time, dry cleaning had been accomplished by using two machines—one for the cleaning process and the second to remove the solvent from the garments.

Machines of this era were described as "vented"; their drying exhausts were expelled into the atmosphere, the same as many modern tumble-dryer exhausts. This contributed to environmental contamination, and much potentially reusable solvent was lost to the atmosphere. Today, much stricter controls on solvent emissions have ensured that all dry cleaning machines in the Western world are fully enclosed, and solvent venting is greatly reduced.{{Citation needed|date=May 2014}} In enclosed machines, solvent extracted during the drying process is recovered and purified by [[distillation]], so it can be reused to clean further loads or safely disposed of. Most modern enclosed machines also incorporate a computer-controlled drying sensor, which automatically senses when all detectable traces of PCE have been removed. This system ensures that only small amounts of PCE fumes are released at the end of the cycle.