(235g) Application Performance of Extended Surfactants Useful for Personal and Domestic Cleanser

Abstract: Extended surfactants are anionic surfactants containing groups with intermediate polarity (e.g., polypropylene oxide) between the hydrophilic anionic head group and the hydrophobic alkyl chain in the surfactant molecule. Past research has reported detailed information on good solubilization of polar oils and ultra-low interfacial tension caused by extended surfactants, but less attention has been paid to their potential application in household chemicals depending on their unique molecular structure. In this work, new extended surfactants were synthesized from several isomeric alcohols by propoxylation, followed by sulfation and neutralization. Their physicochemical and application properties such as γ_cmc , C_cmc , detergency, foaming power, wetting power, salt-tolerance, hard water-tolerance，Krafft point, and lime soap dispersing power were measured. The new extended surfactants have molecular structures similar to a commonly-used surfactant, sodium alcohol polyethyleneoxide ether sulfate (AES), but do not contain the carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane (an ethoxylation byproduct). They have excellent solubility at low temperature and good salt-tolerance and calcium-tolerance, and some of them possess good detergency and foaming power, comparable to AES. Thus, these extended surfactants show the potential to be used in personal and domestic cleaners to replace surfactants with environmental and toxicity concerns.