Chemicals industry comprises the wide range of industrial chemical producers. Tensiometry is strongly involved in research and development of new chemicals, formulation technology, and quality and process control of the various chemical industry applications.
Here are some examples demonstrating how tensiometry can be utilized in this industrial sector:
• Coating additives and adhesives are the most obvious tensiometry driven products. By studying the surface free energy of the solid substrate and surface tension of the fluids, useful information about adhesion and wettability properties can be obtained. These properties can be measured with optical and force tensiometers.
• Detergents use surfactants to draw organic matter away from the substrate. The operations of the surfactants can be observed from the dynamics of the surfactant movement to determining suitable concentrations with bubble and force tensiometers,.
• Agrochemicals like pesticides need to be spread well on the leaves to ensure that the whole leaf is covered and that the pesticide does not drip off the leaf. Optical tensiometer can be utilized to define the contact angle of the pesticide on the leaf and the surface free energy of the leaf.
• Artificial and synthetic fibers are used for textiles in various environments, and the contact angle with water is often a crucial piece of information for instance when developing water repellant clothing. Contact angle of single fiber can be measured by both force and optical tensiometers.
• Emulsions are utilized in many industrial applications and in everyday life, for example oil-water emulsions as creams and lotions in cosmetic products. Emulsion stability and interfacial rheology can be studied with the pulsating drop method of optical tensiometer, which can be utilized as a tool for the emulsion formulation.