Mineral Seal Oil Microemulsions for the Vehicle Care Market
Formulating stable mineral seal oil (MSO) microemulsions for professional car washes is notoriously difficult and those in the lab face formulation issues with limited information about how to solve them. If I want to change suppliers or introduce performance additives how will my stability and performance change? How susceptible to temperature change is my product? Am I formulating a product that will have an efficient water break? How do I change my formulation to alter an attribute without breaking others? If you don’t understand the intricacies of your formulation, it can be a long and winding road to solutions.
Ternary phase diagrams take much of the trial and error out of your approach to change and allow for precise manipulation of your product. Without this window into your product, you are flying blind and relying on unsophisticated “quick fix” troubleshooting.
A key benefit to this control over your product is the ability to confidently pursue cost-efficient materials that the industry has not developed standard formulas with. It frees you up to innovate and differentiate your products from the industry and solve problems efficiently when they arise. Customers will benefit from your ability to quickly and reliably offer solutions to issues that may arise from their unique operation. If your quick fix doesn’t solve the problem, what next?
The Phase Diagram
Description: The example ternary phase diagram above is constructed by plotting the three general phases of a car wash microemulsion onto a graph together. Emulsifiers (along with other surfactant components) are on the right, oil is on the left, and water on the bottom. A fourth dimension that is usually fixed is the solvent used. The oil and emulsifier phase both have a fixed solvent amount added to them. The water percentage therefore describes a dilution of the fully formulated product which is important for various applications and qualities.
Constructing and Reading the Plot: Mixtures of water and emulsifier are blended and oil is gradually introduced. Once clarity is observed that point is plotted and addition of oil continues until the microemulsion fails. This failure point is plotted as well and with enough data a map of the clear and stable microemulsions can be drawn.
Once you have your phase diagram drawn you can plot your current formulation on the map and see where it lies relative to the potential stability zone. The ratio of emulsifiers to oil is a major factor in performance. More oil and less emulsifier will tend toward higher contact angles or “beading”. At the opposite end of the spectrum, you will generally see more “sheeting” action with lower contact angles.
The lines you see drawn from the right-hand axis of binary oil-emulsifier mixtures toward the bottom lefthand corner are dilution lines. You can predict dilution stability from these lines as you introduce more water to your concentrate.
Many other variables exist within this graph as often there are other components included in the emulsifier phase, and your solvent level changes. Each component in your formulation influences the boundary that encapsulates the stable microemulsion space of your product.
Do you want to incorporate a performance additive? Add this to your emulsifier and map out the space. Any effect you see will likely be amplified with an increase in that additive’s concentration. Do you want to use a different MSO? Do you want to change emulsifiers? Are customers having issues with stability? Using phase diagrams will unlock strategies for altering your formula that you didn’t know were there.
I often see formulators adding more of an emulsifier and hoping for a better emulsion. This may not be the case or may be the more costly route to a stable product. Maybe you need to increase the concentration of a solvent, or maybe you need less. Mapping your microemulsion with a phase diagram tells you exactly where you need to move to reach your goals and often you save time and money in the process.
Check out Colonial Chemical’s unique solutions to MSO emulsifying! Our products offer different strengths and strategies depending on what your formulation priorities are. ColaMulse CS400 is a cost-efficient workhorse or choose ColaMulse HP500 if you want a 100% active formula with a wider range of beading and sheeting action. Both of these products prevent the microbeads that leave your vehicles covered in water spots, avoid gelling upon dilution, and are non-flammable materials. Take a look at these and use our formulary guide to get started.
