The Exilva Blog

Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are a group of cationic antimicrobials widely used for numerous industrial and pharmaceutical purposes. They are disinfectant chemicals commonly used in disinfectant wipes, sprays and household cleaners. They are very popular these days as they allow products to claim to be antibacterial and are part of many EPA listed products with emerging viral pathogens and human coronavirus (Covid-19) claims.

There is a strong need to disinfect and sanitize frequently touched surfaces. Exilva Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) is a biobased structuring agent that can thicken household disinfectant and cleaning products at low to high pH, as well as with oxidizing compounds.

Surfactants are present in most consumer products. The most familiar examples are shampoos, hand wash products and cleaning products in general. Switching to sulfate free surfactants improves the environmental profile, but can be a challenge. Let me show you a way to this.

I will demonstrate that one can use cellulose fibrils to thicken and stabilize formulations with foam forming surfactants. The most important point to remember when preparing such formulations is to avoid foam formation during the incorporation step of surfactants with the cellulose fibrils.