In the vast territory of industrial production, the generation of bubbles often brings many troubles. In industries ranging from chemicals to textile printing and dyeing to food processing, foam not only affects product quality, but can also reduce production efficiency and increase costs. Silicone defoamer, as an efficient defoamer solution, is quietly becoming an indispensable role in many industrial production links.

So, what is silicone defoamer?

Silicone defoamer, the main component is silicone oil, showing a white viscous emulsion. Silicone oil is a linear polysiloxane, which remains liquid at room temperature, and has a unique chemical structure, which is neither soluble with water or substances containing polar groups, nor soluble with hydrocarbons or organic compounds containing hydrocarbon groups. This special property gives silicone defoamer a very wide range of applications, whether it is water system or oil system defoamer work, it can be excellent. The defoaming principle of silicone defoamer is based on its low surface tension. Under normal circumstances, the foam is formed by the stable presence of surfactants on the surface of the liquid film, and these surfactants give the foam a certain stability and self-healing ability.

When the silicone defoamer is added, because its surface tension is much lower than the surface tension of the foam liquid film, it can quickly spread out on the surface of the foam to form a thin double-layer film. In this diffusion process, the defoamer disperses the surfactant molecules that were originally stable on the surface of the foam liquid film one by one, reducing the surface tension of the foam wall itself, thus breaking the strong self-healing ability of the foam due to the surfactant, and eventually leading to the foam bursting. In addition, the antifoam agent will also form a mixed liquid wall in the foam wall, which is unstable in structure, and the internal molecules can not accumulate, making the local viscosity of the foam decrease, more susceptible to external stimulation and automatic rupture. The advantage of silicone defoamer is very significant. Its excellent thermal stability, taking the commonly used dimethyl silicone oil as an example, can withstand 150 ° C for a long time, and even can withstand high temperatures above 300 ° C in a short time, and its Si-O bond will not easily decompose, which ensures that it can play a stable role in a wide temperature range. The chemical stability is also excellent, because the Si-O bond is relatively stable, silicone oil is difficult to react with other substances, so as long as the reasonable preparation, silicone defoamer can be used in the system containing acid, alkali and salt. At the same time, it also has physiological inertia, non-toxic to humans and animals, in the appropriate non-toxic emulsifier and other combinations, can be safely applied to food, medical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics and other industrial fields with high safety requirements. Moreover, the defoaming ability of silicone defoaming agent is very strong, and only one millionth of the weight of the foaming medium (1ppm) can be added to produce obvious defoaming effect, which is commonly used in the range of 1 to 100ppm, not only low cost, but also will not cause pollution to the defoaming material.

In practical applications, silicone defoamer is everywhere. In the textile printing and dyeing industry, from the sizing, desizing and refining of fabrics to bleaching, dyeing and other links, it can be seen that it can effectively eliminate foam; In the petrochemical industry, whether it is drilling oil production, natural gas processing, refining and high-energy fuel production, silicone defoamer plays an important role. It also plays an indispensable role in the sewage treatment of the paper industry, the production process of paints and inks, the detergent industry and the food industry. With the continuous development of industrial technology, the performance requirements of silicone defoamer continue to improve. In the future, silicone defoamer is expected to play a greater role in more complex production environments, provide strong support for the efficient, stable and green development of industrial production, and help various industries continue to break through the development bottleneck and move to a new height.