A Surfactant Development Example

Even more confusing is the picture resulting from the comparison of a widely used surfactant and an experimental product called EP-H-18 by Burkhart and co-authors [42]. Both of the products again resulted in identical values in the froth stability test, but differed significantly on an industrial production machine. Whereas the competitive material resulted in a coarse cell structure, the experimental product yielded a fine and regular foam. 

The ST type of structure resulted in only a small number of gas bubbles being formed in the early stages of the reaction. Somewhat better was the combination of branched silicone with pendant polyether groups. The best video imaging resnlts were reported with the branched siloxane, combined with terminal polyether groups followed closely by the SP type of molecule. 

Therefore these types of products are commonly denoted as conventional or non-FR-silicones. 

In contrast, the second best type of structure seemed to be the SP type. These structures are the fundamental means to build SiC-products which are used as universal surfactants, for example in North America. Although SP structures seemed to be the obvious choice to build FR or universal type of surfactants (having a less negative effect on FR-performance) they did not seem to show as good a nucleation as the BT type of molecules. 

The fourth structural type, BP products, no known experience or industrial application was recognised, and due to the combination of not extremely good nucleation (according to the video test) and the complicated synthesis necessary to make them, no reported work was undertaken with these types of molecules. 

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