• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.461-477
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• 2017

Organosilicone-based surfactants, consisting of hydrophobic organosilicone groups coupled to hydrophilic polar groups, 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, organosiloxane surfactants, having low molecular weight siloxane 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 low molecular weight siloxane surfactant structures are required to provide the functional improvement and the defect resolution for reflecting the necessities in the various applications. This review includes the synthetic schemes of reactive tetrasiloxanes and disiloxanes as hydrophobic siloxane backbones, the main reaction schemes, such as hydrosilylation reaction, for coupling reactive tetrasiloxanes or disiloxanes to hydrophilic groups, and the main synthetic schemes of the tetra- and di-siloxane surfactants having polyether-, carbohydrate-, gemini-, bola-type surfactant structures.