Principle of defoaming with defoamer

Foam is everywhere in our life, foam will make the production capacity is greatly limited, will cause a lot of raw material waste. Many companies choose to use defoamer to defoam.

1、Foam local surface tension reduction leads to foam bursting

The origin of this mechanism is to spread the alcohol or vegetable oil on the foam, when it dissolves into the foam liquid, it will significantly reduce the surface tension of the place. Since these substances are generally less soluble in water, the reduction in surface tension is localized to the foam, while the surface tension around the foam remains almost unchanged. The part of surface tension reduced strongly to the surrounding traction, extension, and then rupture.

2、Anti-foaming agent can destroy the membrane elasticity and lead to bubble bursting

Defoamer added to the foam system, will be diffused to the gas-liquid interface, so that the bubble stabilizing effect of the surfactant is difficult to occur to restore the membrane elasticity.
 

3、Anti-foaming agent can promote the liquid membrane liquid discharge, thus leading to bubble bursting

The rate of foam discharge can reflect the stability of the foam, add a substance to accelerate the foam discharge, can also play a role in defoaming.
 

4, add hydrophobic solid particles can lead to bubble bursting foam in our life is everywhere, the foam will make the production capacity is greatly limited, will cause a lot of waste of raw materials. Many companies choose to use defoamer to defoam.

(1) Foam local surface tension reduction leads to foam bursting

The origin of this mechanism is to spread the alcohol or vegetable oil on the foam, when it dissolves into the foam liquid, it will significantly reduce the surface tension of the place. Since these substances are generally less soluble in water, the reduction in surface tension is localized to the foam, while the surface tension around the foam remains almost unchanged. The part of the reduced surface tension strongly pulls and extends to the surrounding, . After rupture.

(2) Defoamer can destroy the film elasticity and lead to bubble bursting

Antifoam agent added to the foam system will diffuse to the gas-liquid interface, making it difficult for the surfactant with foam stabilizing effect to occur to restore the ability of membrane elasticity.

(3) Defoamer can promote the liquid membrane liquid discharge, thus leading to bubble bursting

The rate of foam discharge can reflect the stability of the foam, add a substance to accelerate the foam discharge, can also play an antifoaming effect.

(4) Add hydrophobic solid particles can lead to bubble bursting

The hydrophobic solid particles on the surface of the bubbles will attract the hydrophobic end of the surfactant, so that the hydrophobic particles will produce hydrophilicity and enter into the water phase, thus playing the role of antifoam.

(5) Solubilizing anti-foaming surfactants can lead to bubble bursting

Some low molecular substances that can mix well with the solution can solubilize the surfactant and reduce its effective concentration. This effect of low molecular substances such as octanol, ethanol, propanol and other alcohols, not only can reduce the surfactant concentration of the surface layer, but also dissolve into the surfactant adsorption layer, reducing the degree of compactness between surfactant molecules, thus weakening the stability of the bubble.

(6) Electrolyte disintegration of surfactant bilayer and lead to bubble bursting

For the foam with the help of the surfactant bilayer interacting with each other to produce stability of the foaming liquid, adding ordinary electrolyte can disintegrate the surfactant bilayer to play an antifoaming role.

The hydrophobic solid particles on the surface of the bubble will attract the hydrophobic end of the surfactant, so that the hydrophobic particles produce hydrophilicity and enter the aqueous phase, thus playing the role of antifoaming.
 

5、Solubilizing and anti-foaming surfactants can lead to bubble bursting

Certain low molecular substances that can mix well with the solution can solubilize the surfactant and reduce its effective concentration. This effect of low molecular substances such as octanol, ethanol, propanol and other alcohols, not only can reduce the surfactant concentration of the surface layer, but also dissolve into the adsorption layer of the surfactant, reducing the degree of compactness of the surfactant molecules, thus weakening the stability of the bubble.
 

6、Electrolyte disintegration of surfactant bilayer and lead to bubble bursting

For the foam with the help of foam surfactant bilayer interacting with each other to produce stability of the foaming liquid, add ordinary electrolyte can disintegrate the surfactant bilayer to play an antifoaming role.