• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.66-82
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• 2017

Organosilicone-based surfactants consist of hydrophobic organosilicone groups coupled to hydrophilic polar groups. Organosilicone surfactants have been widely used in many industrial fields starting from polyurethane foam to construction materials, cosmetics, paints & inks, agrochemicals, etc., because of their low surface tension, lubricity, spreading, water repellency and thermal and chemical stability, resulted from the unique properties of organosilicone. Especially, trisiloxane surfactants, having low molecular weight organosilicone as hydrophobe, exhibit low surface tension and excellent wettability and spreadability, leading to their applications as super wetter/super spreader, but have the disadvantage of vulnerability to hydrolysis. A variety of trisiloxane surfactant structures are required to provide the functional improvement and the defect resolution for reflecting the necessities in the various applications. This review covers the synthetic schemes of reactive trisiloxanes as hydrophobic siloxane backbones, the main reaction schemes, such as hydrosilylation reaction, for coupling reactive trisiloxanes to hydrophilic groups, and the synthetic schemes of the main trisiloxane surfactants including polyether-, carbohydrate-, gemini-, bolaform-, double trisiloxane-type surfactants.