Personal Care Industry |
Shampoo & Body Wash

Shampoo and Body Wash

Shampoo and Body Wash are comprised primarily of water and surfactants like SLES and SLS. The most common processing method seems to be large scale batch mixing. This process is very time consuming and not at all energy efficient. Large sums of water and SLES or other surfactant are pumped from source into this large tank. Other ingredients are moved in as well. The complete mixture is agitated over 30-45 minutes then transferred over to a separate hold tank.

Our unique multiple-feed Sonolator homogenization process uses several PD pumps on a single skid to meter at proper ratio these large volume materials, like water and SLES, and homogenize them instantly inline as finished product is pushed by the same skid to your hold tank. A third PD pump is used to meter a premix phase containing some amount of water and the remaining minor ingredients. Fragrance is metered on the same skid but piped into the downstream piping into a static mixer installed after the homogenizer. This way, premix tank cleaning is far easier as fragrance oils don’t linger and carry over to the next premix.

Although tanks are not eliminated here, the size is reduced considerably. In some cases, the premix material will comprise only 25% of the complete solution, allowing you to make the same quantity of product with ¾ less tank space! This is because the homogenizing skid meters the water and SLES directly from their respective sources. Transferring water and bulk fluids to a batch tank is wasteful and should be reduced as much as possible. The transfer out of any batch tank after mixing is completely eliminated and is now incorporated into the inline mixing process.

Benefits

• Reduce tank size for given batch size
• Reduce required floor space
• Increase production capabilities for existing tank and floor space by 3 to 4 X
• Create a finer, more uniform product
• Reduce overall cycle times
• Reduce cleaning by metering fragrance separately on same skid

Sonic Corp has the only homogenizer on the market that comes with a multi-pump metering skid that processes fluids at the high shear rates needed to disperse surfactants and emulsify oils with high quality results!