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Clear translucent gel
Hello , if any body can help me regarding the best way to dissolve carbopol 940 in order to make a hand sanitizer , Ethanol based , and do you recommend other ingredients or humectants , one more thing is what preservative should i use is methyl paraban good
thank you in advance
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8 Replies
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Lubrizol have a few technical documents relating to this that you can usually find via google search or you should be able to get them through your Lubrizol distributor.Try searching for the following documents- Neutralizing Carbopol and Pemulen Polymers in Aqueous and Hydroalcoholic Systems
- Formulating Hand Sanitizing Gels with Carbopol Polymers
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Thank you @ozgirl the thing is i just wanted to know whether carbopol should be dissolved in ethanol 70 directly , or water the add ethanol
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@Amjad, Lubrizol has quite some sample formulations for alcohol gels on ulprospector, so you can signup an account and take a look at their process if you need. There should be some that also uses humectants as well, though it would be likely ones that they produced.
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I’ve a reasonable amount of experience with Carbopol 940 and ethanol.
What % ethanol are you using? I’ve found that either constant incorporation with sieving makes for a resulting mixture without fisheyes.
On the bench scale, which should scale up, it’s easy to sieve onto surface, allow to wet, then mix with a high-shear mixer for a short period.
Thereafter, neutralise and dispense.I’ve had no issues doing this with water present, so can be the ethanol:water mixture itself.
No need for methylparaben from what I’ve seen. The only potential is fungal spores with contaminated packaging, for which a small proportion of hydrogen peroxide works nicely, as per the WHO formulations. Otherwise, ethanol is a good preservative, especially in higher concentrations.
Bear in mind that carbopol 940 isn’t a fan of plenty of other ingredients. Though I’ve had little issue incorporating essential oils for fragrance, it hasn’t worked with aloe vera extracts and surfactants will readily degrade the gel matrix.The amount of ethanol in your mixture, whilst creating a stable gel, will also rely on the neutralising agent used. I’ve found AMP (aminomethyl propanol) works nicely for a strong hand sanitiser.
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Thank you benz3ne for the information , im going with 70 % ethanol , glycerine ,shall i use propylene glycol as a humectant or its okay with glycerine? As for the fragrance im going with non parafine dispensed fragrancies , only flavors (water soluble)
then ill go with alc and water as a medium for carbopol , how much peroxide 50 for preservative effect
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@jemolian thank you ill go do that now !!
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Amjad, do not add hydrogen peroxide to an ethanol hand sanitizer gel, 60% ethanol is MORE than enough preservation and you’ll need to passivate your vessel if adding peroxides. Forget the WHO formula. Far more ingredients are incompatible with peroxide (i.e. aloe vera gel) than they are with any other ingredient, including carbomers. Add glycerin if you want, it is cheap and no need to include PG, but a PEG-ester or PEG-ether dimethicone is much better. Secondly: always add Carbomer to water first, disperse as best you can, then add ethanol and mix well before neutralizing. Carbopol 940 is worst, Ultrez-21 is much better, Seppigel MAX (Seppic) is a little better than Ultrez, and RapidGel EZ-1(3V Sigma) is best of all. With that you can just mix everything together until its all dissolved and uniform then add the RapidGel to thicken. Easiest, cheapest way to go.
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@chemicalmatt thank u,now i know alcohol with peroxide will not be a good choice actually im in lebanon im stuck to the quality that is found here ,do i have any other option as a thickener better that carbomers ?ill be needing advice at this time, launching my own products thank you again
Regards
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