Non-ionic surfactants are mainly silicone-polyether copolymers composed of a polysiloxane backbone as a hydrophobic group and a polyether as a hydrophilic group. By changing the type, quantity and position of the introduced polyether, the hydrophilic and lipophilic properties of the non-ionic silicone surfactant can be effectively adjusted, so as to achieve different properties such as lubrication, milk, stable foam and defoaming, etc., which can be widely used in personal Care products. Because ethoxy (EO) is negatively charged, it can increase the polarity of the silicone surfactant molecules. Therefore, the more the amount of EO, the more hydrophilic the silicone surfactant molecules are.

KIM and other studies show that the cmc and γcmc of polyether-modified surfactants increase with the increase of EO chain length. Studies by Pan Qiang et al. Showed that the surface activity of polyether-modified trisiloxane decreases with increasing EO chain length, while the corresponding polyether-modified tetrasiloxane has the best EO chain length (EO = 8). Within a certain range of lower EO number, the change of γcmc of both of them is small, and when the EO number exceeds a certain range, the increase of γcmc is more significant. Regarding wetting performance, the wetting ability of polyether-modified trisiloxane showed a decreasing trend with the increase of EO number, while polyether-modified tetrasiloxane did not change much when the EO chain length was short. Only when the chain length is longer, it weakens obviously.