Look what happens when you combine silicate chemistry with an

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Look what happens when ^ you combine silicate chemistry with an active imagination. Soluble silicates: Things your favorite soap opera never told you. The keys to any successful soap opera are bathos, conflict, suspense, and soluble silicates. Of these, soluble silicates are the most important. Without them there would be few detergents. Which means there would be few sponsors. General Hospital could be reduced to a clinic. Of course, to those of us in the chemical business, it comes as no surprise that soluble silicates are vital to detergent chemistry. They've been used as detergent and soap builders for over 100 years.

DREYDOPFELS

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T1ÏII Early on, they were used to increase foam stability and decrease the formation of insoluble soaps in hard water. When synthetic detergents came along, soluble silicates became even more important: enhancing the performance of surfactants; providing corrosion

protection; and helping form a better spray- # dried particle. And when the phosphate crisis hit, \ hydrous sodium polysilicates were there to serve as partial or complete phosphate replacements. Bit of a switch. Much of the appeal of soluble silicates lies in their action as deflocculation and suspending agents. They break agglomerated solids into fine particles which remain in suspension until rinsed away. In manufacturing, detergent makers have found that soluble fψj ^ silicates can have a completely opposite, but equally beneficial, effect: they "glue" finely pow­ dered raw materials together. soluble silicates, Each bead or granule becomes too, for ore separation. a uniform mix of silicate, surfac­ You see, even though de­ tant, brightener, and filler. So tergency is one of the oldest you have detergent good to recognized characteristics of the last bead. soluble silicates, it isn't all soap-opera stuff. Anywhere Clean sheets, getting the oil enterprising scientists need a out, and other industrial work. versatile alkali for neutraliza­ Before the clothes dryer came tion, or for saponification, or along, no soap or detergent deflocculation/suspension i$ commercial was complete with­ characteristics, they reach for out a picture of a clothesline-full soluble silicates and polysiliof clean sheets billowing in the cates. And clean up. breeze. And soluble silicates do, After 150 years, we're still indeed, come in handy for finding new uses for our silicates cleaning sheets, bed sheets as and other basic chemicals. And, well as sheets of aluminum after 150 years, we're still deliver­ or steel. They saponify oil and ing them with consistent quality, grease coatings to leave a at competitive prices. clean surface, ready for coat­ That's why you can rely ing or plating. on PQ. They also help get oil out of the ground in enhanced oil recovery processes. Miners rely ( S i The ^Corporation ^ ^ • ^ P.O. Box 8 4 0 . Valley Forge. PA 19482 on the detergency functions of CIRCLE 20 ON READER SERVICE CARD