What Are Surfactant Chemicals and What Are Their Uses

There are many situations and occasions where we make use of surfactant chemicals without perhaps knowing much about it. We may be using it for washing our faces or for washing dishes and even for the purpose of washing a load of clothes. There are many uses of surfactants and they make cleaning more efficient and better. They are basically substances that are also used in a number of cleaning solutions because of their ability to reduce water surface tension. In other words, they help to make molecules slippery. When this happens, there are lesser chances of the molecules sticking to themselves and can perhaps perform better with oil and grease.

 

What are the Other Uses?

Apart from being regularly used in detergents and chemicals, surfactant chemicals are also used in a host of other applications. For example, you will find them being used for making inks, in the manufacture of lubricants, herbicides, adhesives, cloth softening agents and also different types of emulsifiers. It would be pertinent to mention here that even our body produces surfactants. These are produced in the pulmonary area.  This is required for helping in breathing by ensuring that the airway always remains open and free.

 

Benefits & Some Other Uses

When these substances are made a part out of cleaning agents such as detergents, they help in easier mixing of water with detergents. Further they assist in removing dirt from cleaning agents especially from the surfaces that are being cleaned. Without them soaps would not work properly and they would become slippery and move down the surfaces of the clothes. This will hamper the cleaning process and cleaning efficiency will be reduced significantly.

 

As mentioned above, surfactants are important ingredients in lubricants and you can see them being used in shaving creams. This helps the razors to remove stubbles easily and irritation also is reduced quite significantly. Surfactants play a big role in car engine lubricants because they do not allow the particles to stick together to the sensitive engine parts. This helps the parts to move freely and the car therefore always remains in good working condition.

 

How safe are These Surfactants

There are many people who perhaps are a bit perturbed and concerned about the safety aspects of surfactants. It would be pertinent to mention here that though surfactants are used in large quantities across various applications, there has been nothing much to worry as far as the safety attributes are concerned. So far the research studies have shown that they do not have any adverse impact on the environment or they do not get deposited in the soil even when one takes into account the current levels of use.

 

Conclusion

Apart from the above, there are a few other critical situations where surfactants could play a major and positive role. For example, there are situations where the water supply from wells and other groundwater sources start smelling like rotten eggs. This is because of the presence of excess quantities of a substance called hydrogen sulfide. Surfactants are among the various options that are used for separating hydrogen sulfide from water and making it fit for human consumption.

 

Chemical Products Industries Also Offers Following Services:

Hydrogen Sulfide Removal from Biogas

Surfactant Chemicals

Degreaser Formulation

Contact US:

Chemical Products Industries, Inc.

Address: 7649 SW 34th St, Oklahoma City, OK
Phone: (800) 624-4356