Synthesis and physical properties of surfactants based on D-gluconamides

Abstract

This research involved the synthesis and characterization of surfactants derived from D-gluconamide. Six gluconamides (1C, 2C, 3C, 4C, 5C, and 6C) were synthesized from D-gluconolactone and possibly as surfactants. The hydrophobic moiety consisted of alkyl and aromatic components were synthesized in one step and their surface properties were characterized and compared with commercial nonyphenol ethoxylates containing 4 and 40 ethylene oxide units. The surface tension was decreased with increasing concentration of the synthesized surfactants compared with that of purified water. These sugar-based surfactants revealed good solubility with good trend in accordance with the HLB concept (8.0-14.2). The wettability on a hydrophobic parafilm surface gave contact angle values of 71-81 indicating that the sugar based surfactants were found generally to possess poor wetting on nonpolar surface but good wetting on a polar surface. The increasing of contact angle in wetting ability was obtained by increasing the carbons in hydrophobic part of surfactant. The foamability and foamstability was low and decreased with increasing the bulky hydrophobic part.