Water-soluble coatings, detergents

WATER SOLUBLE POLYMERS. Water-soluble polymers find application in a wide variety of areas that include polymers as food sources, plasma substitutes, and as diluents in medical prescriptions. Other areas of importance for water-soluble polymers include detergents, cosmetics, sewage treatment, stabilizing agents in the production of commodity plashes, rheology modifiers in the various processes for petroleum, textile, paper, and latex coatings production. The water-soluble polymers discussed in this article have significant commercial impact. 

The various ingredients in the new detergent are microencapsulated in coatings which ensure that they release their chemicals at the right time, and the whole 25 gram of detergent is sealed in a water-soluble polymer, polyvinyl alcohol, which is also produced from plant materials. 

There were two new aspects. One was the fact that this molecule is an integral membrane protein. Structures of such molecules had not been determined before. They sit in a membrane, which is a lipid bilayer about 50 angstroms thick. This lipid bilayer is a very different environment for a protein than water is. Many of the proteins we know are water-soluble so they present a polar surface to their environment. Membrane proteins have two types of surface they present a hydrophobic surface in that part, which is inside the membrane, and a polar surface in the part that sticks out. That makes them very different to handle, to purify, to crystallize from water-soluble proteins. When we crystallize it, we have to crystallize the whole protein, both parts inside and outside of the membrane. We tried to create conditions in which both the hydrophobic surfaces and the hydrophilic surfaces of the protein were in the correct environment. That was done by coating the hydrophobic surface with so-called detergent micelles. These are molecules that have hydrophobic and hydrophilic ends. They are. similar to lipids but they don t form planar bilayers. They tend to form spherical micelles. Under the right circumstances these micelles can form a belt around the hydrophobic surface of the protein, and thus replace the lipid. This complex of the protein and the detergent has many properties like a water-soluble protein and can be crystallized as water-soluble proteins. So this was a new feature. 

Use Textile warp size, paper coatings, detergents, hair spray, toothpastes, water-soluble packaging film, adhesives. 

Some major applications are thickener in paint industry paper coating, hair sprays shampoos adhesives biodegradable products for the feminine hygiene diapers bottoms water soluble packaging films (detergents, disinfectants, scouring powder, pesticides, fertilizer, laundry, etc.) fibers for concrete reinforcement lubricant for eye drops and contact lenses and material for chemical resistant gloves. 

Andfoam incorporated in detergent-inq)ermeable water-scarrier material such as gelatin and polyethylene glycol. This material is in turn coated with a water-soluble granular material... 

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