Solid Stick Antiperspirant Manufacturing via Surfactant Mediation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Solid stick antiperspirant compositions face challenges in providing effective wetness protection due to high wax concentrations, which impede water flow and bind with antiperspirant actives, reducing their efficacy compared to soft solid compositions.
Innovation Solution
A method of manufacturing solid stick antiperspirant compositions involves combining an antiperspirant active, structurants, and a surfactant with a melt temperature greater than the crystallization onset, ensuring contact for 5 seconds or less to minimize binding and enhance water transport pathways, using a dual stream manufacturing process to prevent surfactant interaction with the active.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If wax concentration is increased to create solid stick antiperspirant composition, then the composition maintains solid stick form, but wetness protection decreases as waxes impede water flow
Solution Approach 1:
A surfactant is introduced as an intermediary substance between the wax structurant and the antiperspirant active. The surfactant has a melt temperature greater than the crystallization onset temperature of the composition, allowing it to remain liquid during crystallization and create water transport pathways through the forming wax structure, thereby enabling water flow while maintaining solid stick form.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the temperature parameter during manufacturing by controlling the contact time between components at elevated temperatures. The mixture is held at a temperature above the crystallization onset for a specific duration (about 5 seconds or less) to allow proper structure formation, then rapidly cooled to freeze the desired microstructure with water transport pathways.
2Stability of the object's composition
If polar waxes are used in solid stick antiperspirant composition, then the composition maintains structure, but antiperspirant active binding increases reducing efficacy
Solution Approach 1:
The surfactant acts as a mediator between polar waxes and antiperspirant actives. By selecting a surfactant with appropriate melt temperature characteristics, it prevents direct binding between polar waxes and antiperspirant actives while maintaining the structural integrity provided by the wax network.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a composite material system combining wax structurant, surfactant, and antiperspirant active. The surfactant component modifies the interaction between wax and active, creating a composite structure that maintains both structural integrity and active efficacy simultaneously.
3Stability of the object's composition
If contact time between antiperspirant active and surfactant is extended, then mixing homogeneity improves, but surfactant binding to active increases reducing efficacy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent optimizes the time parameter by limiting contact between antiperspirant active and surfactant to about 5 seconds or less. This brief contact time is sufficient to achieve adequate mixing homogeneity while preventing excessive binding between surfactant and active that would reduce efficacy.
Solution Approach 2:
The manufacturing process uses periodic temperature control - maintaining elevated temperature during the brief mixing period to ensure homogeneity, then rapidly cooling to freeze the structure and prevent further binding reactions.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach significantly improves wetness protection by allowing better water transport through the composition, outperforming traditional methods and approaching the efficacy of soft solid antiperspirants while maintaining stability.
Implementation Method 1
The surfactant has a melt temperature that is greater than the crystallization onset temperature of the solid stick antiperspirant composition
Implementation Method 2
The surfactant has a melt temperature that is greater than the crystallization onset temperature of the solid stick antiperspirant composition
Data Source
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AI summary
A method of manufacturing a packaged solid stick antiperspirant composition is provided. The method includes combining an antiperspirant active, one or more structurants and a surfactant to form a mixture, dispensing the mixture from a nozzle to fill a dispensing package, forming a solid stick antiperspirant composition within the dispensing package. The surfactant has a melt temperature that is greater than the crystallization onset temperature of the solid stick antiperspirant composition. The antiperspirant active and the surfactant are in contact for about 5 minutes or less from the moment that the antiperspirant active and the surfactant and the structurant are mixed until the moment that the mixture is dispensed from the nozzle.