The role of surfactants

Surfactants play an important role in various applications, and their main functions include:
Reducing surface tension: Surfactants can reduce the surface tension of liquids, making it easier for liquids to wet solid surfaces. This characteristic gives it excellent penetration and cleaning performance in products such as cleaning agents and detergents.
Enhanced dispersion and emulsification: Surfactants can form micelles at the oil-water interface, dispersing oil droplets in water or oil, thereby enhancing the dispersion and emulsification between liquids, making them easier to mix and stabilize.
Wettability: Surfactants can reduce the contact angle between liquid and solid surfaces, making it easier for the liquid to unfold on the solid surface, thereby improving wettability and making the liquid cover the solid surface more evenly.
Foaming properties: Some surfactants have good foaming properties and can form stable bubbles in liquids, which are used in washing, cleaning, and personal care products.
Stabilizing lotion: surfactant can stabilize lotion, keep oil or water droplets dispersed, prevent precipitation or phase separation, thus extending the stability and shelf life of the product.
Thickening and viscosity adjustment: some surfactants can form gel structure in aqueous solution, thus increasing the viscosity and consistency of liquid, which is used to adjust the texture and fluidity of products.
Antistatic effect: Surfactants can form a protective film on the surface of objects, reduce the generation and accumulation of static electricity, and prevent the occurrence of static electricity.
In general, surfactants have many functions, such as wetting, cleaning, dispersion emulsification, stabilizing lotion, thickening viscosity, etc., and are widely used in detergent, detergent, personal care products, industrial products, pharmaceutical products and other fields.