Application of Surfactants

1. Cosmetics

Surfactants are widely used in various cosmetics as emulsifiers, penetrants, detergents, softeners, wetting agents, fungicides, dispersants, solubilizers, 

antistatic agents, hair dyes and so on. Non-ionic surfactants are most commonly used in cosmetics because they are non-irritating and easily 

compatible with other components, generally some fatty acid esters and polyethers.

2. Detergent

Surfactants have efficient cleaning and disinfection functions, and have long become the most important component of cleaning products. 

Surfactants are the main components of detergents, which have a series of physical and chemical interactions with dirt and between dirt 

and solid surfaces (such as wetting, penetration, emulsification, solubilization, dispersion, foaming, etc.) and obtain washing effects by 

means of mechanical agitation. The largest and most widely used are anionic and non-ionic surfactants, and cationic and amphoteric surfactants 

are only used in the production of some special types and functions of detergents. The main varieties are LAS (alkylbenzene sulfonate), 

AES (fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether sulfate), MES (α-sulfonate fatty acid fat salt), AOS (α-alkenyl sulfonate), alkyl polyoxyethylene ether, 

alkyl phenol polyoxyethylene ether, fatty acyldiethanolamine, amino acid type, betaine type and so on.

3. Medical field

Surfactants have the functions of wetting, emulsifying and solubilizing, so they are widely used as drug preparation excipients, 

especially in the pharmaceutical microemulsion technology developed in recent years. In drug synthesis, surfactants can be used 

as phase transfer catalysts, which can change the degree of solvation of ions, and then increase the reactivity of ions, so that the

reaction is carried out in heterogeneous systems, and the reaction efficiency is greatly improved. In drug analysis, especially 

in drug fluorescence spectrometry, surfactants are often used as solubilizing and sensitizing agents. In the pharmaceutical industry, 

surfactants are widely used as fungicides and disinfectants in the field of pre-surgical skin disinfection, wound or mucous membrane disinfection, 

instrument disinfection and environmental disinfection, because they can strongly interact with bacterial biofilm proteins to denature or lose function.