Thickening agent

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Thickener)
Jump to: navigation, search
"Thickener" redirects here. For a separation method see gravity separation.

Thickening agents, or thickeners, is the term applied to substances which increase the viscosity of a solution or liquid/solid mixture without substantially modifying its other properties; although most frequently applied to foods where the target property is taste, the term also is applicable to paints, inks, explosives, etc. Thickeners may also improve the suspension of other ingredients or emulsions which increases the stability of the product. Thickening agents are often regulated as food additives and as cosmetics and personal hygiene product ingredients. Some thickening agents are gelling agents (gellants), forming a gel, dissolving in the liquid phase as a colloid mixture that forms a weakly cohesive internal structure. Others act as mechanical thixotropic additives with discrete particles adhering or interlocking to resist strain.

Thickening agents can also be used when medical condition such as dysphagia cause individuals difficulty when swallowing. Thickened liquids play a vital role in reducing risk of aspiration for dysphagia patients.[1]


Food thickeners frequently are based on either polysaccharides (starches, vegetable gums, and pectin), or proteins. A flavorless powdered starch used for this purpose is a fecula (from the Latin faecula, diminutive of faex meaning "dregs"). This category includes starches as arrowroot, cornstarch, katakuri starch, potato starch, sago, tapioca and their starch derivatives. Vegetable gums used as food thickeners include alginin, guar gum, locust bean gum, and xanthan gum. Proteins used as food thickeners include collagen, egg whites, furcellaran, and gelatin. Sugars include agar and carrageenan. Other thickening agents act on the proteins already present in a food. One example is sodium pyrophosphate, which acts on casein in milk during the preparation of instant pudding.








Examples are:

Commercial jellies used in East Asian cuisines include the glucomannan polysaccharide gum used to make "lychee cups" from the konjac plant, and aiyu or ice jelly from the Ficus pumila climbing fig plant.


Mechanical and thixotropic agents[edit]




Paint and printing thickeners[edit]

One of the main use of thickeners is in the paint and printing industries, which depend heavily on rheology modifiers, without which paints would be oil based, with shellac added to help the surface not crack on drying, but without thickeners, pigments would settle to the bottom of the can, and inconsistent results would be common. Water based formulas would be nearly impossible with the exception of India ink and the few other water soluble pigments, but these would have very little coverage and at best would stain wood slightly. All modern paints and inks will have some "pigment" added at the factory for opacity and to control the specularity of the finish, from matte to high gloss, dependent on thickener used, but more so on the size of the particles added as opacity modifier. One-micrometer (µm) particle sizes and below will be the limit of high gloss, probably confined to luxury automotive coatings, and about 100 µm particulates will make a bumpy surface on the microscopic scale, which scatters light and makes the surface appear matte. There are dozens or hundreds of other performance additives used in paints and inks, for example wetting surfactants, binders, flocculants, dispersants, leveling compounds, antifoam, aerators, surface tension modifiers, film formers, plasticizers, pore formers, water repellents, corrosion inhibitors, bittering agents to deter rodents ...

Rheology modifiers in common use:

  • Polyurethanes, acrylic polymers, latex, styrene/butadiene,
  • Gums - Guar, xanthan, cellulose, Locust bean, and acacia are the main ones.
  • Proteins - Cassein, collagen, and sometimes albumin.



In petrochemistry, gelling agents, also called solidifiers, are chemicals capable of reacting with oil spills and forming rubber-like solids.[2] The gelled coagulated oil then can be removed from the water surface by skimming, suction devices, or nets. Calm or only moderately rough sea is required.

Explosives and incendiaries[edit]



See also[edit]


  1. ^ Devon L. Glassburn, MS and Jodelle F. Deem, PhD "Thickener Viscosity in Dysphagia Management: Variability among Speech-Language Pathologists" Division of Communication Disorders, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA, P1
  2. ^ Jadhav, S. R., Vemula, P. K., Kumar, R., Raghavan, S. R. and John, G. (2010), Sugar-Derived Phase-Selective Molecular Gelators as Model Solidifiers for Oil Spills. Angew. Chem., 122: 7861–7864. doi: 10.1002/ange.201002095

External links[edit]