Synergistic hardening of PEG/alcohol ethoxylate blends for solid formulations

Abstract: Nonionic surfactants are essential components in I&I cleaning and home care formulations. Typical nonionic surfactants with detergent range hydrophobes and HLBs of 11 – 15 suitable for cleaning tend to be liquids. While more EO units increase the pour point of the surfactant to the point of eventually becoming a waxy solid, these higher HLB surfactants are not ideal for cleaning. Most solid surfactants available are based on anionic surfactants like alpha olefin sulfonates and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate. However, these types of surfactants tend to be high foaming and there is less room for tuning properties like foaming or HLB as compared to nonionic surfactants. Thus, formulators designing solid formulations are limited in the amount of liquid nonionic surfactant that can be loaded into these formulations before losing the solid nature of the product. There is a need in the industry to develop solutions to increase the incorporation of nonionic surfactants into solid formulations.

In this presentation we will discuss a strategy to increase the hardness of nonionic surfactant blends by exploiting a synergistic hardening effect that takes place between a three-component blend: 1) low pour point alcohol ethoxylate, 2) high pour point alcohol ethoxylate, and 3) polyethylene glycol (PEG). We will demonstrate that using this approach a solid surfactant blend with high firmness over 275 g can be produced while retaining as high as 80% liquid surfactant actives. This approach is extremely useful for the formulation of solid surfactants and enables higher loading of nonionic surfactants into a solid formulation which could directly correlate to better cleaning efficiency.