On September 25, 2019, Alfa Chemistry, a well known New York-based chemical supplier, announced to enlarge its product lines by offering a wide range of surfactant products to their customers.

What is surfactant?
Surfactant refers to a substance that can significantly reduce the surface tension of a solution and change the interface state of the system, thereby having a series of functions such as wetting, emulsifying, foaming, solubilizing.

Structure of surfactant
The molecular structure of the surfactant includes a long-chain hydrophobic group and a hydrophilic ionic group or a polar group. Since the surfactant has both a lipophilic group and a hydrophilic group in the molecule, it is also called a amphiphilic compound. Typically, the groups of the two moieties of the surfactant molecule are asymmetric. The hydrophobic group of the surfactant molecule may have many different structures such as linear, branched, cyclic, etc., and the hydrophilic group also has various atomic groups, which may be located at the end of the hydrophobic chain or may be moved to any position in the middle.

Characteristics of surfactant
Amphipathicity
From the viewpoint of chemical structure, the surfactant molecule has both a lipophilic (hydrophobic) hydrocarbon bond and a hydrophilic functional group.

Solubility
A surfactant that is at least soluble in one of the liquid phases.

Interface adsorption
The concentration of the solute of the surfactant at equilibrium is greater than the concentration of the solute in the solution as a whole.

Critical micelle concentration (CMC)
When the concentration of the solute of the surfactant reaches a certain level, the solute aggregates to form micelles, and the lowest limit value of this concentration is called critical micelle concentration (CMC).

Polyfunctionality
Surfactant solutions typically have a variety of complex functions such as cleaning, foaming, wetting, emulsifying, solubilizing, dispersing, and the like.

Classification of surfactants
Surfactants are generally classified by the type of ions in the solution. When the surfactant is dissolved in water, any surfactant that can be dissociated into ions is called an ionic surfactant, and any surfactant that cannot be dissociated into ions is called a nonionic surfactant (eg. polyoxyethylene, polyol). Depending on the different type of active ions dissociated in water, the ionic surfactants can be further divided into anionic surfactants (eg. carboxylates), cationic surfactants (eg. ammonium salts, quaternary ammonium salts, heterocycles), and amphoteric surfactants (eg. betaine, amino acids).

Surfactant products currently available from Alfa Chemistry include amphoteric surfactants, anionic surfactants, antistatic agents, cationic surfactants, Industrial surfactants and non-ionic surfactants. For more information about surfactant products from Alfa Chemistry, please visit the website: https://www.alfa-chemistry.com/products/surfactant-124.htm


About Alfa Chemistry
Alfa Chemistry offers an extensive catalog of organic building blocks, reagents, catalysts, reference materials, and research chemicals in a wide range of applications. It also provides analytical services and laboratory services to the customers. Products listed on the website are either in stock or can be resynthesized within a reasonable time frame. In stock products can be shipped out within 3-5 business days upon receipt of customers' purchase order.