Polyethylene Glycol 400 — Liquid PEG for Formulation

Primary uses

• Water-soluble liquid carrier and solubiliser
• Humectant and plasticiser in aqueous systems
• Lubricity and processing aid where the formulator establishes the function

Applications

• Personal care and home care formulation
• Industrial and institutional cleaning formulation
• Coating, ink and adhesive formulation as a water-soluble carrier
• Metalworking and lubricant formulation

Advantages

• Water-soluble carrier behaviour makes it useful where an oil-based carrier would break the system
• Liquid at ordinary handling temperatures, which simplifies dosing compared with higher-molecular-weight PEGs
• Widely specified, so formulators generally already know how it behaves in adjacent systems

Limitations to consider

• PEG grades are distinguished by molecular weight range; substituting a neighbouring grade changes viscosity and hygroscopic behaviour and is a reformulation decision
• Being water-soluble and hygroscopic, it interacts with the water balance of a formulation, which matters in systems where water activity is controlled
• Every numeric property — assay, purity, residual content, pore size, retention behaviour, ash content, extractables, thickness, capacity and dimensional tolerance — is a property of one manufactured item from one production line. Values are read from the manufacturer's own technical documentation for the exact item offered and confirmed at quotation, never quoted from a category page.
• Performance in a formulation is a system outcome, not a raw-material property. Compatibility, dose, stability and finished-product behaviour depend on the rest of the formulation and on the process, and are established by your own laboratory trials rather than by a supplier description.

How to choose the right grade

• Confirm the molecular weight range on the technical data sheet for the offered grade rather than inferring it from the number in the trade name
• Where the end use imposes documentation requirements, state them at the enquiry stage so the offered grade can be checked against them
• Trial the specific grade in the finished formulation, since carrier and humectant behaviour is a system outcome
• Grade names in this chemistry are supplier language rather than a universal ladder, and the same material can be offered as technical, low-odour or high-purity by different producers with different specifications behind the name. The grade offered is identified by its own technical data sheet, not by the label alone.
• Whether a material may be used in a given end use in Canada depends on the applicable inventory and end-use regulation for that use, and that is a determination for the buyer's regulatory function. State the intended end use at the enquiry stage so the documentation available for the offered grade can be checked against it.
• Exact specification is confirmed against supplier documentation at quotation.

Typical grades

• Technical / industrial grade as the producer defines it for that material
• Low-odour, low-colour or high-purity grades where the producer operates them as separate offers
• Grade suitability for a regulated end use, confirmed against the supplier specification for the exact material offered
• Regulatory listing, certification, food-contact status and any scheme approval belong to a specific item, facility and jurisdiction, and they change scope over time. State what your programme or customer requires at the enquiry stage so it is checked against current documentation for the offered item rather than assumed from a product name.