Patent ID: 7300468

Claim:
A method of laundering a fabric load comprising the steps of: contacting the fabric load with an aqueous working fluid in a wash chamber of a washing machine wherein the aqueous working fluid consists of water and a washing additive selected from the group consisting of: builders, surfactants, enzymes, bleach activators, bleach catalysts, bleach boosters, bleaches, alkalinity sources, antibacterial agents, colorants and mixtures thereof; processing the fabric load with said aqueous working fluid; substantially removing the aqueous working fluid from the wash chamber and contacting the fabric load with a first non-aqueous working fluid of the type which extracts some of the aqueous working fluid from the fabric load; substantially removing the first non-aqueous working fluid from the wash chamber and contacting the fabric load with a second non-aqueous working fluid; drying the fabric load following the step of substantially removing the first non-aqueous working fluid from the wash chamber and contacting the fabric load with a second non-aqueous working fluid; wherein the first non-aqueous working fluid is selected from the group: terpenes, halohydrocarbons, glycol ethers, polyols, ethers, esters of glycol ethers, esters of fatty acids, long chain carboxylic acids, long chain alcohols, short-chain alcohols, siloxanes, dibasic esters, aliphatic hydrocarbons, i-propyl myristate, soy methyl esters, ethyl hexyl lactate, and mixtures thereof; and wherein the second non-aqueous working fluid is selected from the group: methoxynonafluorobutane, ethoxynonafluorobutane, propoxynonafluorobutane, and mixtures thereof.