Chemistry in your cupboard

Cillit Bang degreasers (3 of 3)

Glycol ethers

Glycol phenyl ethers are water soluble solvents. They penetrate grease. A typical structure is shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15: Typical structure of a glycol ether. This one is a glycol phenyl ether as it has a benzene ring. The alcohol functional group is shown in the dotted oval and the ether in the solid oval

To do this, they should ideally be non-polar, because grease molecules are essentially non-polar. However, they must also mix with water as Cillit Bang degreasers are dispersed in aqueous solution. So the compounds chosen must be sufficiently polar to mix with water.

Glycol ethers, which have both an alcohol (R-O-H) and an ether (R-O-R) group, have the right degree of polarity to do both. These considerations are similar to those that apply to surfactants described above. They must also, of course, have no damaging effects on the surfaces on which they will be used.

Figure 16: Cillit Bang Power Cleaner Degreaser