The spreading and superspeading behavior of new glucosamide-based trisiloxane surfactants on hydrophobic foliage

In order to find how the molecular structure and HLB (hydrophilic-lipophilic balance) value of trisiloxane surfactant affect its wetting and spreading behavior on leaf surface, the time-dependent and the concentration-dependent spreading performance of five new glucosamide-based trisiloxane surfactants on wheat and cabbage leaf surface were investigated and compared with that of Silwet L-77 (R). The effect of different epicuticular waxes on surfactants ' spreading behavior was also investigated, and the extent of adsorption on epicuticular waxes was calculated. The results showed that the HLB values of surfactants play a very important role for showing superspreading behavior. Furthermore, the spreading performance was also affected by the molecular structure of surfactant and leaf epicuticular waxes. A new trisiloxane surfactant 11 show a good superspreading behavior on cabbage and wheat foliage, which is similar with that of Silwet L-77 (R). This indicated that surfactant 11 have a great potential to being an excellent foliage 'superspreader'. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.