Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Carbomer gel in Polyethylene glycol

  • Carbomer gel in Polyethylene glycol

    Posted by JoongRi on September 27, 2023 at 9:16 pm

    Hello everyone!

    I am working on a non-aqueous PEG 400-based carbomer gel, and struggling with how to make it quickly. I’m using Carbopol 974P and it swells very slowly in PEG-400.

    Here is what I did:

    - Dispersed Carbopol 974P in PEG-400 using a homogenizer speed 7000 rpm x 10 minutes.

    - Heat the mixture to 70 degrees celsius and kept it there for nearly one hour.

    - Then I left the mixture overnight at room temperature.

    The next morning it hadn’t completely swollen and formed a gel.

    If you guys have any recommendations, please let me know.

    Thank you so much!

    chemicalmatt replied 1 year, 2 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • fareloz

    Member
    September 28, 2023 at 5:20 am

    Is it really possible to make a gel without water? My assumption is your mixture just attracts water from the air and that’s why it is so slow.

  • chemicalmatt

    Member
    October 5, 2023 at 2:45 pm

    @JoongRi I am with @fareloz here: acrylics require some water to hydrate and gel, even if just a little. Rapidgel EZ1 from 3V Sigma will thicken a system like that quickly (it’s a PEG-6 solution already) but only if there is 3.0% water inside. Why not switch to a higher mw PEG? Viscosity increases with the polymer length.

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