Working principle of Thickening agent

It is a hydrophilic polymer compound that can increase the viscosity of the liquid and maintain the relative stability of the system after the thickener is dissolved or dispersed in water. The molecular structure contains many hydrophilic groups, such as - Oh, - NH2, - COOH, - COO -, which can hydrate with water molecules to form high viscosity macromolecular solution. Thickener plays an important role in cosmetics and has the functions of thickening, emulsifying, suspending and stabilizing.

Classification of thickeners

According to water solubility, it can be divided into water-soluble thickener and micro powder thickener.

According to the source of thickener, it can be divided into natural thickener and synthetic thickener.

It can be divided into: water-based thickener, oil-based thickener, Acid Thickener and alkaline thickener.

Action principle of thickener

Because the functional groups on the polymer chain are generally not single, the thickening mechanism is usually a thickener with several thickening mechanisms.

Chain winding thickening: after the polymer is put into the solvent, the polymer chain curls and winds around each other. At this time, the viscosity of the solution increases. After neutralization with alkali or organic amine, the negative charge has strong water solubility, making the polymer chain easier to expand, so as to increase the viscosity

Covalent crosslinking thickening: covalent crosslinking is the periodic embedding of bifunctional monomers that can react with two polymer chains to link the two polymers together, which significantly changes the properties of the polymer and has a certain suspension ability after dissolving in water.

Association thickening: it is a kind of hydrophobic water-soluble polymer with the characteristics of type surfactant. The concentration of polymer in water increases, the association between molecules interacts with the polymer hydrophobic group in the presence of surfactant, so as to form the mixed micelle of surfactant and polymer hydrophobic group, so as to increase the solution viscosity.