Replacement of 2- butoxy ethanol in Windex Glas Cleaner - SC Johnson improved cleaning efficiency by 30 %

Making great strides in eco-efficiency: Hewlett-Packard, SC Johnson, Unilever

"In 2002, 181,800 kg of VOCs were removed from the formula while maintaining the "streak-free" formula. In 2004, Windex� was again reformulated eliminating 818,000 kg of VOCs while improving its cleaning performance by 30%. This was done using a patentable combination of surfactants, low VOC solvents and a unique polymer."

Product News - Shampoo Detergent Added to Paint Makes Surfaces Self-Sterilizing

Product News - Shampoo Detergent Added to Paint Makes Surfaces Self-Sterilizing: "coinage"

Cetavlon: CTAB - Hexadecyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide

"We found that the common shampoo ingredient cetavlon was especially effective, as well as having good dopant properties due to its being a detergent that mixes well with both aqueous and oil-based coatings," says Vermuelen.

'The coating doped with cetavlon, a major detergent component of many shampoos that is completely safe for humans, killed the microbes within seconds of application. Even after 5 months the coating could still self-sterilize within 30 seconds.'

Source: American Society for Microbiology

Surfactants for vegetable oils - Discussion at the forum of the Bioremediation Group

Shrihari
I am going to test vegetable oil for bioremediation of some organic
pollutants in the field. To make the oil miscible in water I need to use a
good surfactant. Can any one suggest me a surfactant/s based on his/her
field experience. I am looking for the following qualities in the
surfactant:

1. Cost effectiveness.
2. Past records of filed application
3. Biodegradable surfactant
4. Safe for human health

Christopher Voci
There are several commercially available miscible vegetable oil
mixtures that exist. Preparing a field emulsion is not a simple matter of
adding a surfactant, one must achieve a relatively homogeneous droplet
size (less than 0.5 micron) to prevent coalescing of the droplets
(creaming). At less than $2.00/pound, the commercially available
mixtures are well worth it. See the following sites for info
rnasinc
eosremediation

Dave Russell
Try TIDE-- or any other quality commercial laundry soap.
Failing that, consider lab soaps.
They will be your best bet.
Nothing happens unless the oils are hydrolyzed.

Idavis
If you use soy oil methyl esters, rather than oil per se, you will find it
makes stable emulsions with a viscosity much closer to that of water than
vegoil. We are working with a certified form of "biodiesel" produced in
this region. It is food grade, but still economical.

Valerie Anne Edwards My only experience with surfactants and vegetable oils has been to enhance
the performance of my consortium of FOG degrading, fatty acid and sulfide
oxidizing Bacillus in my Alken Enz-Odor 2, used in grease traps. I use a
proprietary blend of Stepan BioSoft S-100, Polystep TD6 and Stepanate SXS.
Witconate SXS can substitute for Stepanate SXS if its more easily accessed
in your country. While I will not share our exact formulary, you can
experiment to see what works best for you.

If instead, you wish to digest petroleum oils, I have had best results with
a proprietary blend of the following surfactants, together with petroleum
and fatty acid digesting bacteria. Again without exact formula balance, I
like Dow BG 10, Henkel Glucopon 425N or Cognus Glucopon 600 with sodium
metasilicate, as used in our Alken Surface Cleaner 874 or its sister blend that includes
a nice consortium of Bacillus, headed by a trio of petroleum degrading
Bacillus, supported by most of the strains from Enz-Odor 2, especially the
fatty acid degraders. If vegetable oil is part of your mixture, you should
be sure to include both FOG and petroleum degrading bacteria.

I do not believe that surfactants and vegetable oil alone will enable
digestion of petroleum or whatever you want to digest, without augmenting
with optimum selected bacteria, but these are my optimum blends I offer to
our clients who purchase non-formulated high concentration microbes to
prepare into their own blends. If you would like the rest of our list of
"approved additives", including coloring, fragrances, thickeners etc. that
we have stability tested with our microbes for shelf-stability and
co-operation. Others on the list are used in other Alken-Murray microbial
products, were formerly used or were submitted for testing by clients who
needed to know safety at various levels. All surfactants were tested safe
at 3% to be listed, but some tested safe up to and above 30% of a finished
product.

Open Source - Surfactant combinations for enhanced bioremediation

Several years ago surfactant combinations have been developed for enhanced degradation of recalcitrant compounds like polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). see Surfactant combinations for enhanced removal of contaminants
A principle formulation approach was invented delivering a range of closely related surfactant products, from which the most appropriate can be chosen by lab degradation tests. see Two-step bioreactor test for removal of contaminants of low bioavailability

I feel that now it is time to disclose the principles as Open Source for free usage and further development. The reason is that this is not my working field anymore and I have no time and money to exploit these results.

Surfactant formulations named T10, T15 and similar are basically prepared by melting nonionic surfactants with higher degree of ethoxylation (for example ethoxylated tallowyl alcohol with 10 to 50 EO units - Lutensol AT10, AT25, AT50) in fats, oils, grease or oleic acid and subsequent mixing (mixing ratio surfactant-oil between 1:3 and 3:1). After cooling paste like products are generated, which can easily be dispersed in water. Therefore they may be also be applicable for delivery of vegetable oil to stimulate degradation of chlorinated solvents.
Notation of T10S means that a smaller amount of starch is added (up to 20 %) to enhance biofilm formation on the contaminated soil.

Please feel free to contact me for further details.

Rapid stability assessment for liquid and paste-like foods with multisample analytical centrifugation

EURO FOOD CHEM XIII und Deutscher Lebensmittelchemikertag 2005

Hamburg September 19-23, 2005

Rapid stability assessment for liquid and paste-like foods with multisample analytical centrifugation

T. Sobisch, D. Lerche, S. Küchler, A. Uhl

A new multisample approach is presented using analytical centrifugation, which allows for an accelerated characterization of destabilization processes (creaming, sedimentation, coalescence, phase separation). The kinetics of these destabilizing processes can be traced simultaneously for up-to 12 different samples with temperature control down to 4 °C. Analytical centrifugation measures the inherent stability of the samples, but cannot foresee destabilizing processes which will happen in the future. In this respect a combination with common accelerated stability testing is the method of choice. The wide application potential of this approach is demonstrated by examples of measurements on typical food dispersions like beverages, emulsions, milk and milk based products.

A considerable fraction of food products are dispersions (emulsions, suspensions, suspoemulsions). Therefore, not only the microbiological and chemical stability matters, but the separation stability has also to be characterized. The development of new food formulations as well as process development/monitoring and quality assurance require efficient and objective analytical tools for shelf life prediction and stability determination. To this end the potential of multisample analytical centrifugation was evaluated as an accelerated test procedure.

Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kolloidwissenschaften

Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kolloidwissenschaften

Herr Klaus Beneke arbeitet seit vielen Jahren an der Aufbereitung der Geschichte der Kolloidwissenschaften.
Die Internetseiten sind für an der Kolloidchemie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte Interessierte aufschlußreich.

effect of NaCl on coagulation with ferric chloride - Water and Wastewater.com Help Forum

Water and Wastewater.com Help Forum - Ferric chloride in water w/NaCl

besides there is no chemical interaction one has to consider the electrolyte effect on electrostatically stabilized colloids. Higher electrolyte concentrations cause the reduction of the electrostatic double layer thickness, i.e. reduce electrostatic repulsion. Therefore, the colloids can be more easily removed. On the other hand coagulation efficiency might be reduced due to a reduction of the effective surface of the coagulate.

Cosmetics chemical linked to birth defects - Phthalates

Cosmetics chemical linked to birth defects

Long overdue to ban the phthalates from consumer goods. There was no reason to wait until it was proved that it has serious effects on humans, when these were already demonstrated on animals.

Irrespective responds of the industry body CFTA

'there appears to be ’potential technical uncertainties’ regarding the way the study was conducted and the conclusions it drew.' “To draw the broad conclusions being reported in the media from such preliminary findings is totally unsupportable from a scientific viewpoint,” the CFTA said in an official statement.

Only 'tested safe' substances should be used in cosmetic products

Mineral oil will not cause skin outbreaks, report claims

Mineral oil will not cause skin outbreaks, report claims

It seems logical that there is a difference in 'industrial grade' and 'cosmetic grade' mineral oil.

Paraffin oil is used as a standard pharmaceutical ingredient.

Coagulation and/or Flocculation - Waterandwastewater Help Forum

Water and Wastewater.com Help Forum - Coagulation vs. Flocculation

flocculation is mostly carried out with polymeric flocculants, in most cases with cationic polyelectrolytes, given that particle surfaces have a net negative surface charge.

Coagulation is a preferred method for water treatment, in wastewater treatment it is mostly used when finely dispersed colloids with lower mass concentration have to be removed. On the other end for sludge dewatering flocculation is preferred.

Poor settling, besides other operational parameters, might be caused by using the wrong flocculant, by under and overdosing as well.

Rapid selection of dispersants and evaluation of emulsion stability - at the 11th CID Conference

Paper - at the 11th CID Conference June 22 - 24 Rom, Italy

Friday, June 24th , 2005

2.15-12.40 p.m
SOBISCH T., LERCHE D.
(L.U.M. GmbH, Berlin, Germany)
Rapid selection of dispersants and evaluation of emulsion stability by analytical centrifugation

Surface active additives are often applied to stabilize dispersions (emulsions, suspensions) and to modify surface properties. Selection of optimum additive concentration and composition is a crucial step in formulation and in design of technical applications. To this end, a lot of different laboratory methods have been developed, which are in part very sophisticated or on the other end may be very simple but strongly based on individual judgement and experience.

Up-to-date related investigations often require a lot of manpower without delivering clear-cut results.

A multisample technique based on analytical centrifugation is presented, which allows for an accelerated study of dispersion stability and determination of the velocity of destabilizing processes without dilution, thus avoiding changes of dispersion properties. The kinetics of separation are measured directly in-situ with high time and space resolution.

The efficiency of the method proposed for screening and in-depth studies is demonstrated by examples of selection of concentration and composition of additives as well as of preparation conditions for carbon black and lime dispersions. Examples related to emulsion characterization, emulsifier selection, and processing conditions are presented in more detail.

The multisample technique is very suitable for screening purposes, to investigate the influence of different preparation conditions and processes, for selection of the most efficient emulsifier or dispersant systems and for quality control. To trace slow destabilizing (aging) processes a combination with common accelerated aging tests is the method of choice.

Operation flexibility (centrifugal acceleration, measuring time, temperature) allows one to adapt the measuring conditions to a broad stability range and to investigate temperature effects.