Manufacturing Safer Silicones with Thin Film Evaporation

The Challenge

Increased government regulations and consumer awareness surrounding hazardous chemicals in consumer products presents new challenges for silicone manufacturers, namely the removal of silicone cyclics from polysiloxane oils.

REACH has recently placed restrictions on cyclic siloxanes D4, D5, and D6 concentrations for cosmetics and other consumer products to be below 0.1%. The ever increasing standards for removing impurities, volatiles, or unwanted components in consumer products has led to an increase in demand for processing equipment that can meet these stringent part per million (PPM) levels.

Obtaining part per million (PPM) levels of silicone cyclics can present challenges for many evaporators. Most commonly, the product viscosity, temperature sensitivity, and lack of surface renewal prevent other technologies from achieving this goal.

The LCI Solution

LCI’s agitated thin film evaporation technology solves this challenge by effectively purifying and devolitizing silicones to safe PPM levels. Thin Film Evaporation combines the following to effectively handle temperature sensitive, viscous, and stringent processes:

• Extremely Short Residence Time
• Effective Heat Transfer
• High Turbulence
• Rapid Surface Renewal
• Operation under deep vacuum

This combination allows the rapid removal of volatile components to PPM levels in a scalable and environmentally friendly equipment package, and continuous processing of provides increased production rates and efficiency.

Contact LCI today to speak with your process expert about finding your silicone purification solution.