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Help! Controlling foam while filling
I have formulated a foaming hand soap for my company. Our plant manager purchased a piston filler for this product and has complained that there is too much foam to fill the bottles at normal speed. I’ve been asked to dramatically reduce the amount of surfactant in my formula (yes, eliminating the foam from the foam soap.)
Is this necessary?
I’ve read about cross-hair nozzles and other fill methods for surfactant-containing products, but he insists it is a formulation issue.
The formula is about 18% active surfactant matter and I have been asked to reduce it to 5.4%. The new version obviously does not perform as well, but I seem to be the only one concerned.
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5 Replies
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18% is rather a lot. 12% is more usual. I would recommend reducing it to about 12% and bottling the day after batch production.
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How does the filling nozzle operate? If it’s ‘dropping’ the load of hand soap from height, at speed, then it’s more of an engineering issue than a formulation issue.
Belassi is undeniably correct about 18% being particularly high. 12% is what I’m currently working on at the moment and that’s nice.
I’ll agree with Belassi also on leaving it settle after batch production, any air bubbles in the bulk mixture will only exacerbate the dispensing issues. -
they could try filling it more slowly, and/or using filling nozzles that go to the bottom of the bottle and fill it up while raising (I’ve forgotten the proper name for this type of filler, sorry)
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Thank you everyone.
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Bill_Toge said:they could try filling it more slowly, and/or using filling nozzles that go to the bottom of the bottle and fill it up while raising (I’ve forgotten the proper name for this type of filler, sorry)
I was thinking along the same lines (and also the name has failed me).