Defoamers and defoaming agents — Mechanisms of action

Foams are omnipresent in industry: sometimes sought-after, sometimes fought. There's no shortage of examples of foam "hunting": in the chemical industry, of course, in its liquid/liquid extraction, emulsion polymerization and fermentation processes. Every time a solution containing an impurity or, a fortiori, a surfactant, is stirred or transported, foaming occurs immediately and automatically.

The formation of foams can endanger operating conditions or degrade the performance of manufactured products. This booklet provides a theoretical overview of the conditions under which foams form, as well as the main ways of destabilizing them.

In the second part , we'll look at the most common industrial defoaming and antifoaming practices.