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The Concept of HLB

  The term "HLB" was first employed by the lab staff of the Atlas Powder Co. in America.
This means the balance between the oil soluble and water soluble moieties in a surface active molecule, and is expressed as the "Hydrophile-Liphophile Balance".

  A more oil-soluble emulsifier shows a lower HLB and a more water-soluble emulsifier shows the reverse. HLB is a very useful method in selecting an emulsifier, but it still has several limitations to application for every surfactant.

  The HLB concept is not enough to describe all the characteristics of emulsion.

Calculation of the HLB number from a mixture of surfactants

  The HLB number of a mixture composed of x% of surfactants of HLB A and y% of surfactants of HLB B is obtained by the following formula.

                                               HLB ( A + B ) = ( Ax + By ) / ( x + y )

  For instance, if 60 wt.% of POE(3) Octyl Phenol of HLB number 8 is mixed with 40 wt.% of POE(5) Nonyl Phenol of HLB number 10, then the HLB number of this mixture becomes 8.8.
Reversely, to make the mixture of HLB number 11 which is composed of POE(15) Nonyl Phenol of HLB number 15 and POE(2) Nonyl Phenol of HLB number 5.5, then one should mix 42 wt.% of POE(2) Nonyl Phenol wuth 58 wt.% of POE(15) Nonyl Phenol.

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