Application Of Surfactants

Surfactants have a series of physical and chemical effects and corresponding practical applications such as wetting or anti-adhesion, emulsifying or deemulsifying, foaming or defoaming, as well as solution, dispersion, washing, anti-corrosion, anti-static, etc., and become a type of flexible and versatile fine chemical products. Surfactants can cover almost all fine chemical fields except as detergents in daily life.

1. Soluble
2. Emulsion
3. Wetting
In the cosmetics industry, as an emulsifier is an indispensable component of skin care products such as cream, emulsion, face cleaning, and makeup removal.

4. Suspensive
In the pesticide industry, wettable powders, Emulsifiable oils, and concentrated emulsions all require a certain amount of surfactants. For example, the raw drugs in wettable powders are mostly organic compounds and have hydrophobicity, only in the presence of surfactants. Reduce the surface tension of water, The drug particles may be wetted by water to form water suspensions.

5. Foaming and defoaming
Surfactants are also widely used in the medical industry. In the agent, some volatile fat-soluble cellulose, steroid hormone and other insoluble drugs can use surfactant to increase the solubility to form a transparent solution and increase the concentration; It is an indispensable emulsifier, humidifier, suspension aid, foaming agent and defoaming agent in the preparation of the agent.

6. Disinfection, sterilization
They can an be used as fungicides and disinfectants in the medical industry. Their sterilization and disinfection function is attributed to their strong interaction with bacterial Biofilm proteins, which denature or lose their function. These disinfectants have relatively large solubility in water, depending on the concentration of use, It can be used for skin disinfection, wound or mucous membrane disinfection, instrument disinfection and environmental disinfection before surgery.

7. Hard water resistance
Betaine surfactants showed very good stability to calcium and magnesium ions, that is, their ability to tolerate calcium and magnesium hard ions and the dispersion of calcium soap. In the process of use to prevent the precipitation of calcium soap, improve the use of the effect.

8. Viscosity and Bubbling
Surfactants have the effect of changing the solution system, increasing the viscosity and thickening or increasing the foam of the system. They have been widely used in some special cleaning and mining industries.

9. Descaling and washing
The removal of grease and dirt is a complex process, which is related to the wet and bubbling effects mentioned above.

Finally, it should be noted that surfactants work not only because of one aspect but also in many cases because of a combination of factors. For example, it can be used as a cooking agent, a waste paper deinking agent, a glue agent, a resin barrier control agent, a defoaming agent, a softener, an antistatic agent, a scale retardant, a softener, an oil remover, and a sterilization. Algae, corrosion inhibitors, etc..

Surfactants are used as performance additives in many industry formulations, such as personal and home care, and countless industrial applications: metal treatment, industrial cleaning, oil extraction, pesticides, etc..