A brief historical review of four series of commercially available block polymer surface-active agents—the PLURONICR, TETRONICR, PLURADOTR, and PLURONICR R polyols—is presented. A comparison is made of the physical properties within each series, in the form of trend lines. These parameters encompass solubility, rate of solubility, wetting, foaming, defoaming, emulsification, thickening, cleansing, and toxicity.
