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Polysorbate-60 / Tween-60

Polysorbate-60 / Tween-60

INCI Name : Polysorbate-60
Product Name : Polyoxyethylene (20) Sorbitan Monooleate
CAS Number : 9005-65-6
DETAIL
Polysorbate-60 (common commercial brand names include Scattics, Alkest TW-60 and Tween-60) is a polysorbate-type nonionic surfactant formed by the ethoxylation of sorbitan before the addition of lauric acid. Its stability and relative nontoxicity allows it to be used as a detergent and emulsifier in a number of domestic, scientific, and pharmacological applications.

Food applications :
Polysorbate-60 is used as a wetting agent in flavored mouth drops such as Ice Drops, helping to provide a spreading feeling to other ingredients like SD alcohol and mint flavor.

The World Health Organization has suggested acceptable daily intake limits of 0–25 mg of polyoxyethylene sorbitan esters per kg body weight.

Biotechnical applications
In biological techniques and sciences, polysorbate 60 has a broad range of applications. For example, it is used:

as a washing agent in immunoassays, such as Western blots and ELISAs. It helps to prevent non-specific antibody binding. In this major application, it is dissolved in Tris-buffered saline or phosphate buffered saline at dilutions of 0.05% to 0.5% v/v. These buffers are used for washes between each immunoreaction, to remove unbound immunologicals, and eventually for incubating solutions of immunoreagents (labeled antibodies) to reduce nonspecific background.