Chemical engineers design and improve processes and even though you might visualize an engineer lifting big blocks of metal, smelting, welding, fixing parts of machine; A chemical engineer’s product of choice might be laying just in front of you in your house.
Here are 5 daily used consumer products chemical engineers help formulate and create.
- Hair Spray
it is essential that hairspray is designed to provide a strong hold that lasts throughout the day. Hairspray has a composition of complex polymers that have the ability to form invisible bonds across our hair’s fibre intersection. From the polymers that are used in the spray to the packaging of the spray in aerosols, hairspray involves a chemical engineer’s expertise.
- Toilet paper
Toilet paper can be made from either ‘virgin’ or new paper or from recycled paper. The materials besides paper used in its manufacture include water, chemicals for degrading the raw materials into simpler fibers and bleaches. The processes involved in producing toilet paper, are all processes of chemical engineering.
- Deodorants
Deodorant is designed to prevent body odour. Batch process and batch safety testing are crucial processes for deodorants. As deodorants involve active ingredients dispersed in an aqueous or aerosol base, deodorant production heavily depends on chemical engineering.
- Detergents
Detergent powder is produced through either a batch or continuous process, with the larger manufacturers choosing the continuous process, also termed the agglomeration process. Detergents are based on the surface-active compounds or surfactant that attract and dislodge dirt. Surfactants are made up of hydrocarbon chain and a hydrophilic ionic or non-iconic group, both of which form micelles in water and help clean clothes. From surfactants, enzymes to perfumes used in detergents, the formulation involves chemical engineering.
- Toothpaste
An important ingredient of toothpaste is fluoride. Fluoride acts as the active ingredient in toothpaste – it prevents decay and the formation of cavities in teeth by increasing the strength of teeth. Sodium fluoride is the most used fluoride compound used in the processing of toothpaste. The formulation of a toothpaste includes many chemicals, binders and dyes produced in batch processes. The mixture and even consistency of a toothpaste is based on principles of chemical engineering.
From drugs to beauty products and cleaning supplies, whatever you use at your home all has been designed and produced by a chemical engineer because chemical engineering is involved in all industrial and commercial processes.