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Defoamer PDF

The document discusses anti-foaming agents and defoamers. It explains that foam is stabilized by the surface elasticity and viscosity of liquid films, while silicones have low surface tension and can flow over films to occupy openings between foam-stabilizing surfactants. This causes the foam wall to thin and collapse. Silicone defoamers are effective due to their low surface tension, insolubility in most systems, and ability to react less with process ingredients. Compositionally, defoamers are surface active but insoluble in water, and are formulated as emulsions to disperse as droplets. They rapidly spread onto air-water interfaces, helping bubbles coalesce by piercing surfaces.

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Eveline Patricia
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304 views3 pages

Defoamer PDF

The document discusses anti-foaming agents and defoamers. It explains that foam is stabilized by the surface elasticity and viscosity of liquid films, while silicones have low surface tension and can flow over films to occupy openings between foam-stabilizing surfactants. This causes the foam wall to thin and collapse. Silicone defoamers are effective due to their low surface tension, insolubility in most systems, and ability to react less with process ingredients. Compositionally, defoamers are surface active but insoluble in water, and are formulated as emulsions to disperse as droplets. They rapidly spread onto air-water interfaces, helping bubbles coalesce by piercing surfaces.

Uploaded by

Eveline Patricia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Defoamer / Anti Foaming Agent

Foam is stabilized by the surface elasticity and surface viscosity of its film. Silicones have low surface
and interfacial tensions. This enables them to flow easily over the film. They seek out openings
between the foam-stabilizing surfactants at the liquid-air interface and occupy them. Silicones’ low
surface tension and interfacial properties combined with their lack of foam-stabilization properties
cause the foam wall to thin and collapse.

Antifoam and defoaming benefits of silicone

 Lower surface tension, compared to organic antifoams


 Insoluble in most systems
 Tends to react less with process ingredients
 Persistence – generally performs longer
 Can cost less to use due to its effectiveness and persistence at low use levels

Source: http://www.dowcorning.com/content/discover/discoverchem/si-defoamers.aspx

Source: http://www.snfcanada.com/attachments/Antifoam-FLOFOAM_E.pdf
ANTI-FOAM / DEFOAMER

Composition: The most universal characteristic of any defoamer is the fact that it
is surface active, but highly insoluble in water. It has to be formulated so that it
will be dispersed as tiny droplets, i.e. as an emulsion. The surface-active nature of
the material causes it to spread very rapidly onto any air-water interface that it
encounters. This is especially the case if that interface already is covered by the
types of surface-active materials that tend to stabilize foams (P90). Some, but not
all defoamers contain hydrophobized silica particles or ethylene-bis-stearamide
particles. The function of such particles is to pierce the surfaces of foam bubbles,
causing them to coalesce when the defoamer spreads at the interface. In the past
the main ingredient of many defoamers was oil. However, concerns about
chlorinated organic products of bleaching have caused many pulpmakers and
papermakers to switch to low-oil, 100% "active", or silicone-based defoamers that
don't have this problem.

Function: To cause foam bubbles to coalesce to the point where they are large
enough to float harmlessly to the water surface and break

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~hubbe/DFOM.htm
Efficiency loss
Over time, Anti Foaming Agent might lose its efficiency due to 2 reasons:

1. Mutual saturation of the foam and antifoam


Once this occurs, there is no longer any difference in surface tension and the
antifoam will not spread
2. Solubilisation of the antifoam into molecular aggregates (micelles) of foam
stabiliser
This is especially important in strong surfactant solutions above their critical micelle
concentration. When this happens, the anti-foam is removed from the foam system
and cannot operate effectively.

Essential antifoam characteristics:


1. Be insoluble in the foam system
2. Have a lower surface tension than the foam
3. Disperse well in the foam system
4. Possess none of the foam stabilising properties
5. Produce no secondary effects such as oil spotting or fisheyeing

Source: http://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/22-0160-01.pdf

Structure of Silicone Defoamer


- Made of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) which has low surface tension due to the low
intermolecular forces between methyl groups of the molecules
- Neat silicone oil shows low efficiency as antifoaming agent. But mixtures of such oils with
hydrophobic particles such as treated silica or finely divided high melting point waxes are
generally much more effective than the individual components

Source: http://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/Chapter3.pdf

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