WACKER Presents Hydrophilic Silicone Active For Household Fabric Softeners

At the 70th SEPAWA Congress in Berlin, Germany, WACKER is unveiling its new LIOSIL FC 3300 E silicone emulsion to a broad technical audience. The product was developed as a highly efficient additive in household fabric softener formulations. Its active silicone ingredient strengthens the product’s softening effect and makes clothing absorbent and easy to iron. This year’s SEPAWA Congress will take place October 25 – 27.

LIOSIL FC 3300 E, an emulsion containing a high concentration of actives, complements the chemical group’s portfolio of silicone products designed for fabric softener production. LIOSIL FC 3300 E is an odor- and colorless opaque product that is very easy to work with. It simply needs to be stirred into the formulation at the end of the fabric softener manufacturing process. One outstanding feature of the new emulsion is that it combines multiple properties of the existing product line.

The active ingredient of the new emulsion is an aminofunctional silicone polymer to which polyether groups have been added to make it hydrophilic, i.e., to give it an affinity to water. It follows that fabric softeners formulated with LIOSIL FC 3300 E improve the wetting properties of the fibers and allow the fabric to absorb more water. As a result, fabric softeners like these can also be used in applications where rapid moisture absorption by the fabric is especially important. Like classic silicone actives, the LIOSIL FC 3300 E silicone polymer also reduces friction, lending textiles an extraordinary soft hand and making clothing easier to iron.

All three effects – the typical soft hand of silicones, easy ironing and absorbency – play out on cotton and synthetic fibers alike. LIOSIL FC 3300 E avoids the pitfall of many commercially available fabric softeners, i.e., that they make fabric hydrophobic, causing laundry to repel water. Instead, it allows cotton to retain its absorbency, while making synthetics absorbent as well. This means that LIOSIL FC 3300 E opens the door to a new generation of fabric softeners that can be specifically tailored to consumer preferences.

WACKER will be doing more than simply exhibiting at this year’s SEPAWA Congress. On Friday, October 27, silicone experts Christof Brehm and Peter Horvath will hold a talk on fluorine-free impregnation, in which they demonstrate that the effect of impregnation with silicones rivals that of products containing fluorine-based ingredients (Forum for Innovation – Home Care, room 12 + 13, 9:30 – 9:45 a.m., “Silicones leave no one out in the rain – fluorine-free impregnation, Part II”).

Visit WACKER at the 70th SEPAWA Congress, booth C492-493.