emulsifier can be used in many scenarios, whether it is industry, food industry, textile industry, metal industry or pharmaceutical and daily chemical industries, there are various types of emulsifiers. So what exactly are emulsifiers? How many categories can we roughly divide them into? Today we will briefly classify them according to the characteristics of the hydrophilic part of the emulsifier.
Emulsifiers are organic compounds that can make mutually immiscible liquids form stable emulsions. They are all surface-active substances that can reduce the interfacial tension between liquids and make mutually immiscible liquids easy to emulsify.
The emulsifier molecule has two parts: hydrophilic and lipophilic. According to the characteristics of their hydrophilic parts, they can be divided into the following categories: ① Anionic emulsifiers. It is an emulsifier that ionizes in water to generate negative ions and hydrophilic groups with alkyl or aryl groups, such as carboxylates, sulfates and sulfonates. ② positive ion type emulsifier. It is ionized in water to form a positive ion hydrophilic group with an alkyl or aryl group. There are fewer varieties of this type of emulsifier, and they are all derivatives of amines, such as N-dodecyldimethylamine, which can be used in the polymerization reaction . ③Nonionic emulsifier. Its characteristic is that it does not ionize in water. Its hydrophilic part is a variety of polar groups, the common ones are polyoxyethylene ether and polyoxypropylene ether. Its lipophilic part (alkyl or aryl) is directly bonded to the oxyethylene ether bond.
Non-ionic emulsifiers account for the vast majority of surfactants, such as emulsifier O-20, emulsifier MOA series, emulsifier NP series, emulsifier E1300 series, emulsifier OP series, emulsifier S G series, emulsifier LAE series, emulsifier EL series, emulsifier Span series, emulsifier Tween series, polyethylene glycol PEG series, polypropylene glycol PPG series, propylene glycol block polyether, penetrant, etc. All are nonionic surfactants.
