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Author
Pujadas Calmet, Núria
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Abstract
ADI Center is a company dedicated to manufacturing and distributing chemical products throughout the world, mainly in Spain and Portugal. The company is specialized in the sectors of Home Care, Personal Care and Performance products.
One of the projects that is being developed is the manufacture of an opacifier without microplastics. These compounds are synthetic particles made of plastic material that measure a maximum of 5 millimeters and many of the current opacifiers contain it in their formulation. To contextualize, an opacifier is a substance that is added to cosmetic products or detergents mainly to reduce the transparency or translucency of the product with the aim of improving the final appearance of the formulation. Recently the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has proposed the progressive banning of these opacifiers in cosmetics, detergents, paints and industrial and agricultural products. For this reason, the company has begun work on the development of an opacifying agent without microplastics, one of the objectives of this project. Currently, there are two opacifiers on the market complying with the regulations imposed by the ECHA, both are from a leading company in the chemical world, they will be indicated as: Reference 1 and Reference 2. From the ADI Center laboratories, work is being done to make a Contratype of these two products, based on distearated glycol, it is widely used in cosmetics and is insoluble in water. Surfactants play a key role in the opacifier formulation, specifically cocamidopropyl betaine (CAPB), coco polyglucoside, sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES), glyceryl mono-oleate (GMO) and mono-stearate of glyceryl (GMS). The second objective is to replace ethylene oxide with a more sustainable alternative, glycerin. Ethylene oxide (EO) is a very present substance in ADI Center manufacturing. It is a very reactive substance with volatile properties that make it a very flammable chemical with a high potential to explode, and its origin is petrochemical. As a result of the explosion of the company Industrias Químicas del Oxido de Etileno (IQOXE), the rise in oil prices and the tendency of companies to use more sustainable and more natural products, an alternative to this oxide of ethylene. Glycerin is a substance of natural origin that provides hydrophilicity to a hydrocarbon chain, therefore, it could be a candidate molecule to replace ethylene oxide to obtain non-ionic surfactants with a natural origin.
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