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Rohm and Haas Company
This article appeared in EUREKA!, the Company's quarterly community newsletter
SunSpheres: Making Sun Exposure Safer for Everyone
Last year, nearly 1.4 million Americans were diagnosed with some form of skin cancer, and over 9,000 people died of the disease. As concerns about skin cancer continue to rise, consumers welcome products that increase protection against the damaging rays of the sun. Rohm and Haas has just introduced SunSpheres, a new polymer which, when added to the active ingredients in sunscreen, dramatically enhances protection against both UVA and UVB rays.
The development of SunSpheres is revolutionary chemistry that is expected to have a major impact on sunscreen formulations in the future, according to Fred Kaplan, technology manager for personal care products in Rohm and Haas's Consumer and Industrial Specialties group. The group is located in the company's Research Laboratories in Spring House, Pa.
Extensive testing has shown that the inert SunSpheres polymer can boost a sunscreen's SPF by 50 to 70 percent, enabling sunscreen manufacturers to reduce the amount of active ingredients in their products while providing consumers with the same level of protection. Consumers benefit because there is less chance of skin irritation thanks to the reduced volume of active chemicals in the sunscreen formulation. In addition, sunscreen products containing SunSpheres may be aesthetically more appealing than many high SPF products with high levels of inorganic sunscreens such as zinc oxide or titanium dioxide which are white on the skin.
By using a lower volume of active ingredients, sunscreen manufacturers may be able to reduce product cost another benefit to consumers. With SunSpheres, Rohm and Haas enjoys a powerful competitive advantage because the product is patented and unique in the industry.
Hollow Sphere Technology
To develop SunSpheres, a team of scientists in Rohm & Haas's Consumer & Industrial Specialties group used hollow sphere technology. Originally created by Rohm and Haas to enhance the opacity of paint, this technology involves hollow beads or spheres. These beads are too small to be seen by the eye, but when ultraviolet light (UV) hits the air pocket in the hollow beads, it scatters in many directions.
When added to paint, the hollow beads or spheres intensify the scattering and, ultimately, reflect more visible light. Rohm and Haas scientists Rafael Aviles, Marty Vogel, and Dave Fasano realized that the hollow sphere technology could be adapted to scatter invisible UV light. Chuck Jones, an applications chemist in the company's Spring House Research Laboratories, recognized that this technology could be used to enhance the performance of sunscreen.
Jones and his teammates, Ching-Jen (C-J) Chang and Barry Weinstein, both synthesis chemists, adapted the size of these hollow beads so they scatter invisible UV light while remaining transparent when applied to the skin.
"The amount of UV light absorbed by the skin depends on how much film it has to pass through," explains Jones. "The thicker the film, the less UV light your skin will absorb. SunSpheres offers a great advantage because you don't have to put a thick layer of sunscreen on your skin to get more protection. When light hits the hollow beads or SunSpheres, the UV rays are scattered and begin to travels sideways instead of straight down onto your skin. This enables the sunscreen's active ingredients to absorb more of the UV rays before they get to your skin.
SunSpheres enhances sunscreen protection against both UVA and UVB light. While UVB light causes sunburn, UVA light is more dangerous because it causes long-term damage that leads to skin cancer and other problems such as loss of skin elasticity.
One of the biggest challenges in developing Sunspheres involved product stability. "We had to insure the integrity of the spheres," explains Jones. "When they are manufactured, they are filled with water. They are stable in this form. When the product is applied to the skin, the internal water migrates out of the sphere, leaving microscopic hollow balls in the sunscreen. This hollowness,or air void, is critical to the performance of the product."
The team performed aggressive testing, maintaining SunSpheres at 120 degrees Fahrenheit for three months, to ensure that the hollow balls would stay intact under rigorous conditions and still enhance sunscreen performance. SunSpheres passed with flying colors.
Ready for Market
The SunSpheres polymer was officially introduced this spring at domestic and international cosmetics industry shows where manufacturers greeted it with enormous enthusiasm. Expectations run high that sunscreen manufacturers worldwide will soon begin formulating their products using SunSpheres. Sunscreen containing SunSpheres should be on shelves in Australia and South America by the end of this year. In North America and Europe, you can look for it next summer.
Sun Spheres is a regestered trademark of Rohm and Haas and ISP, its Alliance partner for personal care polymers.