α-Sulfo alkyl ester surfactants: Impact of changing the alkyl chain length on the adsorption, mixing properties and response to electrolytes of the tetradecanoate

Wang Z 1 , Li P 2 , Ma K 2 , Chen Y 2 , Yan Z 3 , Penfold J 4 Show all authors , Thomas RK 5 , Campana M 2 , Webster JRP 2 , Li Z 6 , Neil JH 5 , Xu H 7 , Petkov J 8 , Roberts DW 9

Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Science, State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China; ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
  • 2 ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
  • 3 School of Science, State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China. Electronic address: zfyancat@upc.edu.cn
  • 4 ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK; Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QZ, UK. Electronic address: jeff.penfold@stfc.ac.uk
  • 5 Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QZ, UK
  • 6 Microsharp Innovation Ltd., 10 McCabe Place, Oxford, OX3 0LQ, UK
  • 7 KLK Oleo, SDN BDH, Menara KLK, Muliara Damaansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 8 Lonza UK, GB-Blackley, Manchester, Lancs, M9 8ES, UK
  • 9 School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK
J Colloid Interface Sci, 2021 Mar 15;586:876-890.
PMID: 33309145 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.10.122

Abstract

HYPOTHESIS: The α-sulfo alkyl ester, AES, surfactants are a class of anionic surfactants which have potential for improved sustainable performance in a range of applications, and an important feature is their enhanced tolerance to precipitation in the presence of multivalent counterions. It is proposed that their adsorption properties can be adjusted substantially by changing the length of the shorter alkyl chain, that of the alkanol group in the ester.

EXPERIMENTS: Surface tension and neutron reflectivity have been used to investigate the variation in the adsorption properties with the shorter alkyl chain length (methyl, ethyl and propyl), the impact of NaCl on the adsorption, the tendency to form surface multilayer structures in the presence of AlCl3, and the effects of mixing the methyl ester sulfonate with the ethyl and propyl ester sulfonates on the adsorption.

FINDINGS: The variations in the critical micelle concentration, CMC, the adsorption isotherms, the saturation adsorption values, and the impact of NaCl illustrate the subtle influence of varying the shorter alkyl chain length of the surfactant. The non-ideal mixing of pairs of AES surfactants with different alkanol group lengths of the ester show that the extent of the non-ideality changes as the difference in the alkanol length increases. The surface multilayer formation observed in the presence of AlCl3 varies in a complex manner with the length of the short chain and for mixtures of surfactants with different chains lengths.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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