Water Wetter - NAC

[Don Muirhead]

Minus the snips............

Since a company I was involved with a bit back (ICI Surfactants) made this 
stuff so here's the scoop.

Water Wetter is a non ionic surfactant.  Or to keep it simple a mild soap 
with an antifoaming agent in it so it doesn't foam.  It's basically the 
same stuff they use in agriculture with insecticides/pesticides, etc to 
keep the active chemical on the plants.

Surfactants can have different heat inhibitors added depending upon 
application.  However, even with heat inhibitors added the efficacy of a 
heated surfactant is short.  So I'm not personally a big proponent of the 
stuff.

Everybody and their brother has a "use" patent on this stuff which means by 
adding a little of this or that to the basic formula you can specify a 
"specific use" and apply for a patent.  So they're don't really have a 
patent on the stuff just the application.

The Eastman product (which is the original formulator of surfactants btw) 
is the same except the proportions are less and use it in processing.

If you add a quaternary ammonium compound (quat) to this, then you have a 
disinfectant.
If you add glycol you have antifreeze.
If you add a softening agent you get a wetting agent with anticorrosive 
properties.

I think you get the drift...surfactants/wetting agents are used almost 
everywhere.

Wetting agents are used by forestry and fire departments to fight fires, 
not start them.  The foam they use at airports for an example is a high 
percentile surfactant without the antifoaming agents.

Btw...I just re-sub'd like the new format.

Don