Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Sodium carbonate and surfactant mixture

Tagged: 

  • Sodium carbonate and surfactant mixture

    Posted by MartinaM on April 18, 2017 at 6:52 pm

    Dear all,

    I prepared simple liquid water softener and prewash mixture which contains water, sodium carbonate and surfactant. I chose lauryl glucoside because I think there is no chemical reaction in this solution. Am I right or should I use different surfactant? 
    I also think it’s not necessary to preserve this mixture.

    Thank you for your advice.

    DRBOB@VERDIENT.BIZ replied 7 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • johnb

    Member
    April 19, 2017 at 6:56 am

    Alkylbenzene sulfonates are the surfactants of choice in laundry products. The detersive properties of most other types is normally much inferior to ABS.

    A problem you will most likely encounter if you are marketing this as a liquid is precipitation/separation of the surfactant if the concentration of the carbonate is high.

  • MartinaM

    Member
    April 19, 2017 at 8:36 am

    Thank you for your comment johnb.

    The concentration is high, I used 15-25 % of the carbonate. The reason I chose lauryl glucoside is separation of the other surfactants. The solution is homogenous, but I am not sure if it will change.
    Other surfactants were precipitated or separated after few hours.

  • johnb

    Member
    April 19, 2017 at 8:49 am

    The precipitation/separation you are seeing is the surfactant being “salted out” by the high ion concentration.

    There should be a better reason than avoiding precipitation qualify a particular surfactant to be used in a product.

    Lauryl glucoside has very poor detersive power in comparison to ABS. If this is not of a concern to you then there is little reason for it to be present. Merely sell a sodium carbonate solution.

  • DRBOB@VERDIENT.BIZ

    Member
    April 19, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    if this is a pre-wash soak similar to Woolite you can use sodium  sesqicarbonate with a mixture of LAS and nonionic alcohol ethoxylate)I think 1:1 ratio) which will provide PH of 7-8.You may need a hydrtrope to keep sesqicarbonate in solution but have a go at it.

Log in to reply.

Chemists Corner