Cleaning products have become an important part of our daily lives. Whether used for personal hygiene or cleaning food processing lines, cleaning products need to safely and effectively remove soil, bacteria, or other pollutants. Surfactants are key components in detergents, so evaluating their performance is crucial for the development of all detergents. There are multiple ways to evaluate the performance of existing cleaning products. The final step in the industrial manufacturing process is the packaging of cleaning products and detergents.

[Surface Cleanliness - Cleaning and Cleaning Agent Analysis]

Are you conducting a cleaning efficiency assessment?

Do you feel that your understanding of product efficiency is limited? Moreover, simply because there is not enough information in the feature data you collect, it is difficult to cope with the pressure and challenges of developing more efficient, faster, and environmentally friendly products.

Embark on the fast lane towards a cleaner future

Do you know that it is possible to obtain more detailed time-resolved spectra by comparing and supplementing standardized information before and after measurement, in order to understand what is happening on the surface? These pieces of information can help you accelerate development work and address areas of improvement that cannot be achieved by current methods such as time-consuming or collecting sufficient information over long measurement cycles, or point by point methods. By measuring the cleaning profile of surfactants or formulations, QSense ® The information provided by technology allows you to gain a deeper understanding of the process of stain expansion and purification.

With these new supplementary information, you will be able to address the challenges you face and accelerate the development of more efficient and environmentally friendly products.

Faster, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly - driving QSense ® Reliability of Technology

High precision and real-time data collection provide you with special fingerprint information that demonstrates how surfactants/formulations interact with specific stains. This cleaning overview contains key information for evaluating cleaning efficiency, such as

·How fast is the cleaning speed of your surfactant/formula

·How effective is the cleaning of your surfactant/formula

·The influence of formula composition and cleaning conditions on the results

This powerful solution can reveal your cleaning efficiency and automatically and in real-time screen and sort detergents. Essentially, we provide you with a powerful tool that can help you solve the challenge of limited understanding of cleaning efficiency faced by current standardization methods, achieving faster, cleaner, and greener results.

Standardized detergent analysis

The efficiency of detergent may be related to its ability to wet the surface to be cleaned. The surface tension of detergent solution plays a significant role. Generally, the lower the surface tension, the better the wetting ability of the solution. Surfactants are the main components used to reduce the surface tension of detergent solutions. The dosage of surfactants can be optimized by measuring the critical micelle concentration.

The following standards can be used to describe the surface tension measurement of aqueous solutions and solutions containing surface active molecules.

· ASTM D1331-11

· OECD 115

· EN 14210

· EN 14370

QSense ® Cleaning Overview

Revealing the chemical cleaning process

QSense ® The cleaning overview provides you with a special fingerprint that showcases the efficiency of the interaction between your surfactant or formula and specific stains, revealing the complete cleaning process through the following three key parameters:

1. Swelling time

2. Quality clearance rate

3. Total removal mass

QSense ® The cleaning overview can help you understand the efficiency of the formula and enable you to rank the performance of the product.

Using QSense ® ， You can easily and quickly screen and arrange different candidate formulas, compare various changes:

·Composition formula

·Concentration

·Temperature dependence

·Water quality

·Cleaning cycle time

You can pre program the test to run up to 8 samples at once, providing you with high-precision, real-time, and reproducible data that reveals the performance of different options under different cleaning conditions.

[Surface Cleanliness - Cleanliness]

Do you need to characterize or evaluate surface cleanliness?

The surface surrounds us, everywhere. We live on it, utilize it, and make use of it. In many cases, surface cleanliness is of interest and importance, and in some cases even critical. The meaning of "cleanliness" is certainly a matter of definition, covering cleanliness at all scales from macro to nanoscale and beyond.

When we think of cleaning, the first type of surface that comes to our mind is the surface of the houses and objects we use in our daily lives - the kitchen, bathroom, clothes, and perhaps our transportation, such as our cars. But we also expect public places to be hygienic - restaurants, public transportation, and hospitals. The latter is one of the key areas where nanoscale cleanliness is crucial. For example, cleaning surgical tools and other surfaces in hospitals is key to successful surgery and preventing disease transmission. In industries farther away from us, such as the production and processing of food, pharmaceuticals, or other sensitive substances, shifting from manufacturing one component to another may require surface hygiene treatment between the two. Or in the electronics and optics industry, as well as in the manufacturing of circuits or coatings, the slightest dust molecule can be catastrophic. Other structures such as oil pipelines and heat exchangers in power plants may be exposed to pollution over time, accompanied by the accumulation of unwanted substances such as sediment formation, scaling, biofilm formation, and fouling, all of which may hinder their functionality.

Real time characterization and evaluation of surface cleanliness

QSense QCM-D can measure and quantify sediment, scale accumulation, and biofilm formation at the nanoscale, as well as remove the same sediment in real-time and quantitatively. Optimizing conditions to reduce or prevent the accumulation of unwanted substances is crucial, and you can characterize cleanliness before, after, and during environmental changes. In areas such as assessing kitchen cleanliness, describing biofilm formation, and measuring asphaltene adsorption in crude oil pipeline fouling, methods or additives can be developed to eliminate them.

Rapid evaluation of surface cleanliness through contact angle measurement

The efficiency of cleaning and detergent formulations can be evaluated through contact angle measurement.

The surface free energy of cleaning and treating surfaces is directly related to cleanliness and surface composition. Contact angle is one of the most sensitive surface analysis techniques, as even the nanoscale of the surface can affect wetting behavior. As a simple and fast measurement technique, contact angle is commonly used to track the efficiency of cleaning processes and cleaning solutions. Therefore, in the crucial field of cleanliness control, contact angle measurement is a very suitable quality control method. Automated Theta provides a user independent and fast method for contact angle measurement in cleanliness assessment.

The cleanliness of silicon wafers and circuit boards is an important factor in ensuring optimized functionality of the final product. The cleanliness of glass surfaces, such as inkjet printing of bottles or the use of adhesives for label applications, directly affects the quality of subsequent processing steps. Measuring glass contamination helps reduce waste and ensure efficient production.

ASTM C813-90- Hydrophobic Contamination of Glass by Contact Angle Measurement

[Surface Cleanliness - Surfactant]

Are you characterizing surfactants?

As one of the key components of cleaning products, surfactants have attracted much attention in improving the performance of cleaning formulas. There are several performance aspects that can be used to characterize, evaluate, and enhance the performance of the final formula to reach its optimal state, in order to help improve key characteristics such as foaming, wetting of surfaces to be cleaned, emulsification of dirt, and maintaining the dispersion of dirt in the solution to prevent surface re deposition. The dynamics of surface active substances at the interface are crucial for characterization and evaluation. It is important to fully understand how a single surfactant, surfactant combination, or more complex detergent formulation works in real-time and at the nanoscale when designing, adjusting, and optimizing based on desired performance and specific conditions. The interaction between surfactants and specific stains, as well as the removal efficiency as a function of key parameters such as concentration, water quality, and temperature, are all related to improving the activity, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of the product.

Evaluating the efficiency of surfactants using wettability

The efficiency of detergents is related to their ability to wet the surface to be cleaned, whether it is a smooth, hard glass surface or a soft, porous textile. To wet the surface, it is necessary to spread the liquid. The spreading of detergent solution onto a solid substrate depends on the surface tension of the detergent solution and the contact angle between the solution and the solid surface. The surface tension of detergent solutions is affected by the addition of surfactants and can be measured using optical or mechanical surface tensiometers. The dosage of surfactants can be optimized by measuring the critical micelle concentration (CMC).

After the detergent solution is spread, emulsification of stains will inevitably occur, and surfactants play a major role in this process. Surfactants also help to disperse collected dirt in the solution, preventing it from re depositing on the surface.

Optimize the dosage of surfactants in detergent solutions

Optimizing the dosage of surfactants used for cleaning solutions is important, as excessive use of surfactants has both economic benefits and environmental impacts. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) is an important parameter commonly used for optimizing the concentration of surfactants. Due to the influence of single molecule surfactants on the cleaning power, it is actually not affected by the presence of micelles, so CMC points can be used as an indicator of the required amount of surfactant. Sigma 700/701 combined with an automatic distributor can complete fully automatic CMC measurement. Because the measurement is automated and does not require manual interaction, it can reduce the required labor time.

Adapted with permission from J. Chem. Educ. 83 (2006) 1147. Copyright ©2014 American Chemical Society

Exploration of Surfactant Interface Dynamics

Using QSense ® QCM-D technology has several methods to explore, characterize, and optimize the behavior and performance of surfactants as needed. It can characterize a single surfactant, a combination of surfactants, or a complete formulation. QSense ® In addition to providing a cleaning overview that describes how specific surfactants, multi surfactant solutions, or complete formulations interact with specific materials or stains and can be used to evaluate removal efficiency, QCM-D technology can also accurately explore the dynamics of surface stain interactions as key parameters such as temperature and surfactant concentration change. Usually, it is also possible to monitor and characterize the dynamics and behavior of the surfactant/surface interface, and extract changes in adsorption kinetics and morphology of the adsorbed surfactant layer.

[Surface Cleaning - Enzyme Preparation]

Are you using enzymes in detergent solutions?

Enzymes are common components in detergent solutions, added to formulations to enhance their performance, such as enhancing the removal of certain stains (including fats) or making them perform better at cold wash temperatures. In order to adjust and optimize the entire formula for the desired performance, it is important to fully understand how single enzymes, enzyme combinations, or more complex detergent formulations can function in real-time and at the nanoscale. The interaction between enzymes and specific stains, as well as key parameters such as concentration, water quality, and temperature, are used as references to evaluate removal efficiency, or to characterize and improve enzyme activity, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness related to the final product.

Exploring enzyme interactions to improve cleaning efficiency

Using QSense ® QCM-D technology allows you to analyze, characterize, and grade the performance of individual enzymes, complex enzyme solutions, and complete formulations. The characterization method includes obtaining the cleaning efficiency grading of the cleaning profile, that is, the fingerprint of how a certain enzyme or preparation interacts with a certain stain material, but it can also accurately obtain the enzymatic degradation and cleaning process at the nanoscale.

[Surface Cleaning - Paper and Packaging]

In the packaging industry, adhesion and wetting play critical roles in many processes. Packaging materials typically include various layers of different materials to meet all requirements for protecting and improving the products inside the packaging.

Optimize the adhesion of coatings on paper

Due to its relatively low cost and renewability, paper is often used as a packaging material. The barrier properties of paper are usually insufficient, so different polymer coatings are used to produce laminated materials. To ensure good mechanical properties of laminated boards, it is necessary to optimize the adhesion between polymers and paper. Wettability and surface roughness play a crucial role in adhesion and can be studied by combining contact angle and surface roughness measurements.

Before the final use of paper products, wood fibers are usually mechanically or chemically modified. The improvement of new fibers, such as utilizing nanotechnology for fiber functionalization, is also a hot topic of research. The performance of a single fiber can be studied by combining a tensiometer or optical tensiometer with a skin lift distributor.

The influence of roughness on the wettability of paper

Due to its fibrous structure, the surface of paper and cardboard is almost rough. Because it amplifies the wetting effect of surface chemicals, this roughness can affect wetting properties. In addition, different types of plasma and flame treatments used to improve printing quality can affect surface chemistry and surface roughness, so evaluating the effect of roughness on contact angle is very important.

The following example shows the effect of roughness on contact angle. Measure roughness and water contact angle at three different sample locations. Especially for hydrophilic base paper, the measured contact angle shows significant changes in the contact angle reading. After removing the influence of roughness by calculating the contact angle corrected for roughness, the contact angles become closer to each other. The difference in contact angle for roughness correction is due to the surface chemical properties of the surface. Combining contact angle and surface roughness measurement makes it possible to evaluate how roughness affects contact angle.

[Surface roughness and wettability download]

Evaluating Printing Quality through Wettability Study

Another aspect of packaging is its visual appearance. The purpose of printing on packaging is to sell internal products. The printing quality is affected by the wetting and absorbing properties of ink, as well as its spreading onto porous paper. Printing on low surface energy polymer coatings may be challenging. Optical tensiometers can be used to measure the contact angle to evaluate the influence of internal and surface sizing on the paper's absorption performance. If necessary, high-speed cameras can study very fast absorption phenomena.

Inkjet printing technology is increasingly being used for home and office printing, and has also become common in industrial printing, packaging industries, and functional printing applications. The combination of optical tensiometer and skin lift distributor can be used to demonstrate inkjet printability, especially its interaction with paper.

Study the absorption properties of coatings and ink pigments using powder wetting method with mechanical tension meter.

Evaluate the plasma treatment effect on extruded coated paper using contact angle measurement.

When printing non absorbent and low surface energy plastic surfaces, the adhesion between ink and substrate is challenging. The surface free energy of the substrate should be higher than that of the ink. To ensure good printing quality, surface treatment methods such as plasma and flame treatment should be used before printing to increase the surface free energy of the coated substrate.

Application Summary: Evaluation of Surface Treatment in the Packaging Industry

Tension measurement in inkjet printing applications

Inkjet printing is a versatile technology widely used in small home and office printing, high-speed industrial printing, and more innovative functional printing applications. Due to the crucial interaction between ink and substrate in defining inkjet printing quality, tension measurement method is widely used in this field.

The adhesion between ink and substrate can be estimated by comparing the surface tension of ink and the surface energy of substrate. Using contact angle measurement to study the absorption and spreading of droplets. The leather upgrade dispenser option of Theta optical tensiometer generates droplets of the same size as those in the real inkjet process through the use of piezoelectric driving technology.

Application Summary: Tension Measurement in Inkjet Printing

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