Team 03

Team Members

Faculty Advisor

Janelle Armentia
Barry Ren
Mary Lembree

Dr. Anson Ma

Sponsor

Unilever

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Concentrate Dilute Process Development

Unilever is the parent company of many consumer products, including the Dove brand. Social media driven consumer behavior has increased demand for product variety rather than continual production of a single formulation, requiring personal care companies to adapt to changing preferences. Currently, Dove Men+Care body wash is produced using a batch cycle that generates large quantities of a single product variant, limiting the flexibility needed to respond to emerging consumer trends. To address this challenge, while also reducing electrical consumption and storage costs, Unilever is developing a two-stage mixing cycle. This manufacturing approach involves producing a base concentrate that can be differentiated into multiple fragrances and textures through a dilution process, all from a single formulation, as illustrated in the overall process flow diagram (Figure 1). Our team aims to optimize both the concentrate formulation and the dilution procedure using two sets of Design of Experiments (DoE), a method used to evaluate how process conditions influence final product characteristics. In the first DoE, multiple concentrate formulations were produced by varying processing conditions to determine which factors improved ease of manufacturing and performance. The best performing concentrate was further iterated on in the second DoE, which focused on optimizing the dilution step to achieve desired consumer properties. Both the concentrate and final diluted products must remain compatible with existing Unilever equipment and comply with safety specifications. The anticipated outcome is a base concentrate and dilution strategy that enables efficient production of high-quality Dove body wash products within an evolving market.