Fatty Acids and Surfactants

Hasten Cleanse—Fatty Acids and Surfactants

Hasten Energy Solutions LLC manufactures a product comprised of fatty acid molecules similar to soap and uses heavy surfactants to capture and break up hydrocarbon residue.

Surfactants cause water to bead and lose surface tension. Whenever you see a bead of water on your kitchen countertop, it sits there as a drop because of its surface tension. It will hold its shape never spreading until it evaporates or is dried off. When drops are on the underside of a leaf, they fall off due to gravity

To reach the surface of what you’re cleaning, the surface tension must be reduced. This is done using surface active agents, or surfactants, a group of chemicals. Water acts differently when using heavy surfactants. When the surface tension is reduced, the water can now spread out wetting the surface being cleaned.

On the surface the surfactant molecules are comparable to a magnet with a negative charge on one end and positively charged on the other end. One end of the surfactant is attracted to water molecules and the other end repels water molecules. One end does not want to be in water while the other end does.

As the saying goes, ‘water and oil don’t mix.’ The Greek word hydrophobic (hydro for water and phobia for fear) means the end that fears water will repel it.

The hydrocarbon chains made of hydrogen and carbon of the surfactant is at the end that fears or repels water. Since the hydrocarbon chains adore grease and oil, they do their best to stay away from water.

The end that loves water is the hydrophilic end and the Greek word philic means loving. Again, hydro means water; therefore, hydrophilic is water loving and attracts water.

The way the two ends function together is a miraculous way of how surfactants work on hydrocarbon residue and solids.

How Surfactants Clean

Micelle Forming and Removing Residue

The micelle is the spherical shape of surfactants. When a surfactant is added to water, the ends that hate water want to stay away from it and do this by forming into a spherical shape

Fatty acids have an amphipathic nature for a molecule meaning it has two different attractions: one is a polar end attracted to water and the other being nonpolar is repelled by water.

The ends loving water are on the outside and the ends fearing water are protected on the inside.

Trapping the oils is done by the micelle with the inside of the micelle being hydrophobic hating water.

The hydrocarbon residue and solids are also hydrophobic and they love the environment created by the micelle.The attraction of the hydrocarbon residue and solids to the inside of the surfactant micelle helps work loose and release it from the surface.

The residue is suspended in the water inside the micelle after the residue has been taken off the surface. The suspension is known as emulsification.

The hydrocarbon residue and solids are trapped inside the micelle, the micelle is hung up in the water, and the residue is easily washed away.

How good is that? When rinsing, the micelle flows away for a clean surface.Hasten Cleanse is sold only as a concentrate for all of your needs in various size containers.

Call us today for more information on our product and how it can solve your remediation issues at (832) 655-7763.

Safety Data Sheet

Please click below to download SDS for Hasten Cleanse.

Download SDS

How Surfactants Clean Hydrocarbons

Traditional petroleum-based solvents work by dissolving hydrocarbons — essentially melting them with a stronger hydrocarbon. This creates a flammable mixture that is difficult and expensive to dispose of.

Hasten Cleanse works through surfactant action, which is fundamentally different:

Surface tension reduction — The surfactant molecules reduce the surface tension of water, allowing it to spread across and penetrate hydrocarbon films instead of beading up on the surface
Bond disruption — The hydrophobic (oil-attracting) end of each surfactant molecule embeds into the hydrocarbon layer, while the hydrophilic (water-attracting) end pulls toward the water phase. This breaks the adhesion between hydrocarbons and the substrate.
Emulsification and lift — The disrupted hydrocarbons are lifted off the surface and held in suspension as microscopic droplets in water. This creates a stable, non-flammable mixture that can be safely pumped and treated.

The result is a cleaning process that is faster, safer, and produces less waste than solvent-based methods.

The Role of Fatty Acids

The fatty acid component of Hasten Cleanse serves a dual purpose that sets it apart from synthetic surfactant products:

Cleaning performance — Fatty acids are natural surfactants derived from plant and animal sources. They have been used in soap-making for thousands of years because they are exceptionally effective at disrupting oil-water interfaces. In Hasten Cleanse, heavy-chain fatty acids provide the primary cleaning power against stubborn hydrocarbon residues.

Biological support — When Hasten Cleanse wash water enters wastewater treatment systems, the fatty acid molecules serve as a carbon and nutrient source for hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria. This means the cleaning chemistry actively supports the biological treatment of the waste it generates — reducing treatment costs and improving effluent quality.

This dual function is why Hasten Cleanse performs well in environmentally sensitive applications like soil remediation and marine cleaning, where the treatment chemical itself must not introduce additional environmental harm.

Why This Matters for Your Operation

Non-flammable cleaning — Water-based surfactant action eliminates the fire risk associated with petroleum solvent cleaners
Lower disposal costs — Non-hazardous wash water is cheaper to treat and dispose of than solvent-contaminated waste streams
Faster results — Surfactant penetration works faster than solvent dissolution on most hydrocarbon residues
Environmental compatibility — Biodegradable fatty acids support natural cleanup processes rather than adding to the contamination burden
Concentrated formula — Hasten Cleanse is shipped as a super concentrate with honey-like viscosity, meaning less product to store, ship, and handle per job

Schedule a Free Demo

See Hasten Cleanse perform in real-world conditions at your facility. Free on-site demonstrations available for Gulf Coast operations.

Request a Demo

Or call 832-655-7763

Industrial Applications of Surfactant Chemistry

The fatty acid and surfactant formulation in Hasten Cleanse has been specifically engineered for the toughest industrial cleaning environments. While the underlying chemistry — surfactant molecules disrupting oil-water interfaces — is the same principle that makes soap work, the specific surfactants and fatty acids in Hasten Cleanse are selected for their performance against heavy industrial hydrocarbons: crude oil, refined products, paraffin wax, asphaltenes, coke deposits, and production chemicals.

Key application areas where the surfactant chemistry excels:

Storage tank cleaning — The surfactants penetrate heavy sludge layers and break the bond between hydrocarbon deposits and steel surfaces, allowing removal by circulation and pump-out rather than manual scraping
Vapor suppression — The surfactant film on hydrocarbon surfaces physically reduces the rate of vapor evaporation, lowering LEL and VOC concentrations in the work area
Degassing — Combined vapor suppression and residue removal accelerates the time to safe-entry atmospheric conditions
Spill remediation — Surfactant action lifts hydrocarbons from soil, concrete, and water surfaces for recovery without creating secondary contamination
Heat exchanger descaling — Circulation of the surfactant solution through tube bundles dissolves hydrocarbon fouling without the mechanical damage of high-pressure hydroblasting
Soil treatment — Fatty acids support naturally occurring hydrocarbon-degrading microbes while the surfactants mobilize contaminants for extraction or in-situ biodegradation

Concentrated Formula: Less Product, More Performance

Hasten Cleanse is supplied as a super concentrate with a honey-like viscosity. This concentrated form offers several practical advantages over ready-to-use cleaning products:

Lower shipping cost per cleaning job. A single drum of concentrate, diluted at ratios of 1:10 to 1:50, produces 10 to 50 drums of working solution. This dramatically reduces the volume (and cost) of product that must be shipped to your facility.

Flexible dilution for different applications. The same concentrate is used at different dilution ratios for different cleaning scenarios. Heavy crude sludge might call for 1:10. Routine vapor suppression might need only 1:50. Your crew adjusts the dilution at the point of use rather than stocking different products for different applications.

Reduced storage footprint. One pallet of concentrate replaces multiple pallets of ready-to-use products. For facilities with limited chemical storage space, this consolidation is significant.

Longer effective shelf life. Concentrated products are inherently more stable in storage than diluted solutions. The concentrate does not degrade, separate, or lose effectiveness over time under normal storage conditions.