Wetting ability of surfactants - Formulating - Chemists Corner

Tagged: hair care, ingredients

Formulating

Wetting ability of surfactants

Posted by Zara on December 13, 2020 at 8:50 am

Hi everyone,
Which sulfate free surfactants have a better wetting ability? And does it depend on the electrical charge?
Which sulfate free surfactants have smaller molecule weight?
Thank you for help in advance.

chemicalmatt replied 2 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
- hair care
- ingredients
2 Replies

Pharma

Member
December 14, 2020 at 10:57 am

The ones with the lower surface tension . Surface tension depends not just on the properties of the surfactant (such as CMC) but also on the solution in which you use it, additional ingredients, the interface to be affected (in this case solution/surface and not solution/air as usually measured) which inherently depends on the material/structure of the surface to be wetted.

Depending on those factors, a surface charge can have an effect but a charged surfactant isn’t inherently better than a nonionic one.

Monomeric surfactants have smaller MW than polymeric ones.
chemicalmatt

Member
December 14, 2020 at 5:12 pm

@Zara Then again there is the Draves Test. Many surfactant makers will publish their results. And @Pharma makes a good point, surface charge may factor but not absolutely. E.g. PEG-12 Dimethicone has better surface tension reduction (read: detergency) effect than some anionics.

Log In to Reply