Zwitterionic polyacrylamide

Benign ionic polyacrylamide (usually referring to ionic polyacrylamide that meets environmental protection standards, with low toxicity or non-toxicity, mainly including cationic, anionic, and non-ionic types.

Applications of Benign Ionic Polyacrylamide

Benign ionic polyacrylamide (usually referring to ionic polyacrylamide that meets environmental protection standards, with low toxicity or non-toxicity, mainly including cationic, anionic, and non-ionic types. The core of "benignity" lies in its low residual monomer content and high biosafety, making it suitable for scenarios with strict requirements on the environment and human contact). Relying on its excellent properties such as flocculation, adsorption, thickening, and drag reduction, it is widely used in water treatment, environmental protection, agriculture, food processing, medicine, and other fields. Its specific applications are as follows:

I. Core Application Field: Water Treatment and Environmental Protection

Water treatment is the most important application of benign ionic polyacrylamide. Different ionic types target different water quality needs to solve problems such as sewage purification, sludge dewatering, and water quality improvement. Due to its "benign" characteristics, it can be used in water treatment scenarios with high safety requirements.

Ionic Type	Core Function	Specific Application Scenarios
Cationic Type	Adsorbs negatively charged colloidal particles (such as sludge and organic pollutants) to achieve flocculation and dewatering	1. Dewatering of municipal sewage/industrial wastewater sludge (e.g., printing and dyeing, papermaking, and chemical sludge) to reduce the water content of sludge for subsequent treatment; 2. "Sludge thickening" in domestic sewage treatment to accelerate sludge sedimentation; 3. Water purification in aquaculture to adsorb organic debris such as residual bait and feces in water, improving water quality without harming aquatic organisms.
Anionic Type	Combines with positively charged suspended solids (such as sediment and metal ions) in water to form large flocs for sedimentation	1. Treatment of industrial wastewater (e.g., steel, mining, and coal washing wastewater) to remove suspended particles in water and reduce turbidity; 2. Auxiliary agent for "coagulation and clarification" in municipal water supply plants to improve the sedimentation efficiency of impurities such as sediment and reduce the dosage of disinfectants; 3. Treatment of oilfield wastewater for reinjection to remove oil and suspended particles in water and avoid blocking oil layers.
Non-ionic Type	Suitable for neutral/weakly acidic water bodies, adsorbs impurities through hydrogen bonds, and has strong salt resistance	1. Treatment of high-turbidity and high-salinity wastewater (e.g., pretreatment of seawater desalination and purification of saline-alkali land drainage); 2. Treatment of "desizing wastewater" in textile wastewater to adsorb organic impurities such as cellulose and size in water.

 

II. Agricultural and Soil Improvement Field

Due to its low toxicity, benign ionic polyacrylamide can be directly used in agricultural production without polluting soil, crops, and groundwater. Its main functions are water retention, soil consolidation, and soil structure improvement:

 1.Soil Water Retention Agent: Non-ionic or weakly anionic polyacrylamide can absorb water hundreds of times its own weight. When applied to soil, it forms a "hydrogel" that slowly releases water for crop absorption. It is especially suitable for arid and semi-arid areas (e.g., farmland in Northwest China), reducing the number of irrigations and improving water use efficiency.

2.Soil and Water Conservation Agent: When sprayed on sloping land, terraced fields, or reclaimed soil in mining areas, it can enhance the cohesion between soil particles, reduce soil erosion caused by rainwater scouring, and at the same time, not affect the respiration of crop roots.

3.Fertilizer Efficiency Enhancer: When mixed with fertilizers, it can adsorb nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilizers, slow down the rate of nutrient loss, extend the fertilizer effect, and reduce the risk of groundwater pollution by chemical fertilizers.

III. Food and Pharmaceutical Fields (High-Purity "Benign" Grade)

Food-grade or pharmaceutical-grade products with extremely low residual monomers (e.g., acrylamide residue < 0.01%) are required. They mainly utilize their thickening, stabilizing, and adsorption properties, and are non-toxic to the human body:

 1.Food Processing:

Thickener: Used in fruit juices, beverages, jams, and dairy products (e.g., yogurt) to improve the viscosity and taste of products, while enhancing the stability of the system and preventing stratification;

Clarifying Agent: Used in the extraction process of sucrose and starch to adsorb impurities (such as protein and fiber) in raw materials, accelerate sedimentation, and improve product purity;

Water Retention Agent: Added to meat products (e.g., sausages and meatballs) to lock in water, improve the tenderness of meat, and reduce water loss during processing.

2.Pharmaceutical Industry:

Pharmaceutical Excipient: Used as a binder in oral preparations (e.g., tablets and capsules) to help form pharmaceutical powders without affecting drug release; or as a thickener in oral liquids to improve the stability of the liquid medicine;

Medical Wastewater Treatment: Used for the purification of bacteria-containing wastewater in hospitals and pharmaceutical wastewater, adsorbing organic matter and microorganisms in water, and discharging it after reaching the standard to avoid environmental pollution.

IV. Other Industrial and Civil Fields

1.Paper Industry:

Retention Aid: Combines with fibers and fillers (e.g., calcium carbonate) in pulp to reduce their loss with wastewater, improve paper yield, and lower production costs;

Strengthening Agent: Improves the bonding force between paper fibers, enhances the tensile strength and bursting strength of paper, and at the same time reduces the water absorption of paper;

Wastewater Treatment: Treats papermaking wastewater (e.g., black liquor and middle-stage water) to remove impurities such as lignin and fibers, realizing wastewater recycling or discharge up to standard.

2.Oil Extraction:

Drilling Fluid Additive: Serves as a drag reducer and viscosifier to improve the fluidity of drilling fluid and reduce friction and damage to the formation during drilling;

Tertiary Oil Recovery Oil Displacement Agent: Improves water flooding efficiency by thickening injected water, promotes the flow of underground crude oil to oil wells, and increases crude oil recovery rate (benign anionic products with salt resistance and temperature resistance are required to avoid polluting oil layers and groundwater).

3.Daily Chemical Industry:

Used as a thickener and stabilizer in products such as shampoos, body washes, and toothpastes to improve product texture and prevent component stratification;

Added to cosmetics (e.g., face creams and lotions) to enhance the moisturizing property and skin feel of products without irritating the skin.

 Key Precautions

The core premise of "benignity" is compliance with safety standards in the corresponding field:

 When used in water treatment, it must comply with environmental protection requirements such as the Discharge Standard of Pollutants for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants (GB 18918-2002) to ensure no harmful residues in the treated water or sludge;

When used in food/pharmaceutical fields, it must comply with national standards such as the National Food Safety Standard for the Use of Food Additives (GB 2760) or Good Manufacturing Practice for Drugs (GMP). The use of industrial-grade products as substitutes is strictly prohibited to avoid harm to human health caused by residual monomers.

Because zwitterionic polyacrylamide contains cationic and anionic groups in its molecules, it has the characteristics of general cationic flocculants. When cationic polyacrylamide is used in combination with anionic polyacrylamide, a reaction will occur to produce precipitation. Therefore, zwitterionic products are more ideal.

Mainly used as flocculant: for suspended particles, coarse, high concentration, positively charged particles, and neutral or alkaline water, the anionic polyacrylamide molecular chain contains a certain amount of bases that

can adsorb suspended solid particles in the water, so that the particles can form large floccules by bridging. Therefore, it accelerates the sedimentation of particles in the suspension, and has a very obvious effect of accelerating the

clarification of the solution and promoting filtration. This product is widely used in the treatment of chemical industrial wastewater and waste liquid, and municipal sewage treatment.

1. Water treatment for tap water industry, high turbidity water purification, sedimentation, coal washing, mineral processing, metallurgy, steel industry, zinc, aluminum processing industry, electronics industry, etc.

It is widely used in the petroleum industry, oil production, drilling mud, waste mud treatment, prevention of water channeling, reduction of friction, improvement of recovery rate, and tertiary oil recovery.

2. Used as textile sizing agent, the slurry has stable performance, less slurry falling, low fabric breakage rate, and smooth cloth surface.

3. Used in papermaking industry, one is to increase the retention rate of fillers, pigments, etc. To reduce the loss of raw materials and pollution to the environment; secondly, to improve the strength of paper (including dry strength and wet strength). In addition, the use of PAM can also improve the tear resistance and porosity of paper to improve visual and printing performance. Zwitterionic polyacrylamide has better performance due to the presence of cationic and anionic groups in the molecule. This type of flocculant can be used in a wide range of pH values, has a higher water filtration capacity, a lower filter cake moisture content, and can also be used for strong acid leaching of ores or recovery of valuable metals from metal-containing acid catalysts.

4. Used in food and tea packaging paper, other industries, food industry, for cane sugar and beet sugar production, cane juice clarification and syrup phosphorus flotation extraction.

5. Enzyme preparation fermentation liquid flocculation clarification industry

6. Used for the recovery of feed protein, stable quality, good performance, the recovered protein powder has no adverse effects on the survival rate, weight gain and egg production of chickens, synthetic resin coatings, civil engineering grouting materials for water blocking, building materials industry, improving cement quality, construction industry adhesives, caulking repair and water blocking agents, soil improvement, electroplating industry, printing and dyeing industry, etc. The effect of inorganic salts is several or dozens of times higher, because this type of wastewater generally carries a negative charge. Using water-soluble azo initiators such as AIBA, its molecular weight can be

increased to more than 10 million.

Parameter	Specification Range
Appearance	White granules
Solid Content	≥88%
Cationic Degree	5%–50%
Anionic Degree	8%–15%
Molecular Weight	Varies by product grade: Low-molecular-weight (500,000–1,500,000 Da), Medium-molecular-weight (1,500,000–8,000,000 Da), High-molecular-weight (8,000,000–15,000,000 Da)
Dissolution Time	≤60 minutes (under standard stirring conditions at 25℃); ≤50 minutes for some high-efficiency dissolution grades
Ion Type	Contains both cationic groups (e.g., quaternary ammonium groups) and anionic groups (e.g., carboxylate groups) simultaneously
Residual Monomer (Acrylamide)	≤0.05% (industrial grade); ≤0.02% (food/drinking water grade)
Water-Insoluble Substances	＜0.5% (for high-purity grades)
Effective pH Range	2–13
Shelf Life	12–24 months (stored in a cool, dry, well-ventilated environment; avoid moisture and direct sunlight)