Acids Acid cleaners

Surfactants are compounds used in an array of cleaning products for their ability to lower the surface tension of water, in essence making the molecules slipperier, so they are less likely to stick to themselves and more likely to interact with oil and grease.

Surfactants are molecules that reduce the surface tension of water, helping it to spread out more uniformly. Basically, surfactants make water “wetter”. They also help penetrate, loosen and trap soil so you’re really cleaning, not just moving dirt and grime from place to place.

Surfactants are a primary component of cleaning detergents. Surfactants have a hydrophobic (water-hating) tail and a hydrophilic (water-loving) head. The hydrophobic tail of each surfactant surrounds soils.

Dish soap is used as a surfactant, both when washing dishes and applying herbicide to plants. Water is repelled by oil or grease on dishes, but when soap is added the hydrophobic tail attaches to the oil while the hydrophilic head attaches to the water.

Surfactants are widespread in several human activities because of a series of excellent performances like wetting and emulsifying. A large number of surfactant containing wastewater are discharged into the environment, resulting in harming aquatic life, polluting the water and endangering human health.

Most fish will die when detergent concentrations approach 15 parts per million. Detergent concentrations as low as 5 ppm will kill fish eggs. Surfactant detergents are implicated in decreasing the breeding ability of aquatic organisms. When the algae decompose, they use up the oxygen available for aquatic life.

The term ‘natural surfactant’ is not unambiguous. Taken strictly a natural surfactant is a surfactant taken directly from a natural source. The source may be of either plant or animal origin and the product should be obtained by some kind of separation procedure such as extraction, precipitation or distillation.

The interaction between all the ingredients brings out the final effect of the surfactants on your skin. Avoid using the harsh ones such as SLS or SLES (Sodium laureth ether sulfate). Harsh surfactants can strip your skin of its natural moisture and hasten your skin’s aging process.

Some Gentler Surfactants

• sodium cocyl isethionate: extremely gentle.
• cocamidopropyl betaine: mild surfactant, in part due to its zwitterionic character.
• sodium lauryl sulfoacetate: large molecule surfactant, very mild, very gentle.
• sodium cocoyl (or lauryl/lauroyl) sarcosinate: very mild.

So for this formulation, you would want to use a surfactant that has a value of approximately 11 to achieve the best emulsification. HLB values are additive, so if the use of two different surfactants is desired, the HLB will be the weighted average of the HLB values for each product.

Anionic surfactants are commonly found in laundry detergents, handwashes, kitchen cleaners, body washes. They are the most widely used and versatile surfactants. They are the most effective at removing oily residue. But, as the most potent surfactants, also cause skin irritation.

FYI, Dawn dish soap is a nonionic surfactant.

An effective nonionic flotation surfactant usually possesses the properties of good ink collection and adequate foaming. Some of the most common nonionic surfactants used in flotation deinking are EO/PO copolymers, in which the hydrophilic part is EO (ethylene oxide) and the hydrophobic part is PO (propylene oxide).

Skin irritancy of surfactants is related to their physico-chemical properties. Surfactants can be split into two well-separated classes: toxic and mild. Ionic surfactants can be mild; non-ionic surfactants can be toxic.

Carboxylates are the most common surfactants and comprise the carboxylate salts (soaps), such as sodium stearate….Others include:

• Docusate (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate)
• Perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS)
• Perfluorobutanesulfonate.
• Alkyl-aryl ether phosphates.
• Alkyl ether phosphates.

Surfactants covers a large group of ingredients that are responsible for several functions, including creating a product that foams. They are cleansing agents and are routinely found in shower gels, shampoos and facial cleansers.

Cationic surfactants are irritating to mucosa, leading to gastrointestinal upset, but are more likely to cause burns of the mouth, esophagus and stomach than anionic or nonionic surfactants.

Cationic surfactants are essentially quaternary ammonia compounds with positively charged surface-active moieties (e.g. benzalkonium, benzethonium, methylbenzethonium, cetylpyridinium, alkyl-dimethyl dichlorobenzene ammonium, dequalinium and phenamylinium chlorides, cetrimonium and cethexonium bromides).

Both cationic and amphoteric surfactants cause high or moderate acute toxicity on fish, crustaceans, algae and bacteria. It is noted that the ranges of toxicity values are very large and diversified, even for the same aquatic organism or test method and for this reason the literature is very permissive (Table no.