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 important that hairspray is designed to provide a strong hold that lasts throughout the day. Hairspray consists 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 other materials used in its manufacture include water, chemicals for breaking down the raw materials into usable fibres 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 can be produced in either a batch or continuous process, with the larger manufacturers favouring the continuous process, also known as the agglomeration process. Detergents are based on the surface-active ingredient or surfactant. Surfactants consist of hydrocarbon chain and a hydrophilic ionic or non-iconic group, both of which perform a specific function. 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 – it prevents decay and the formation of cavities by increasing the strength of teeth. Sodium fluoride is the most common fluoride compound used in the manufacture 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.