Microemulsion formulation for low temperature cleaning using novel surfactant Systyems

Abstract

The eco-friendly surfactant detergency in future is motivated by environmental saving. The design of cold water detergency to perform well requires formulation of detergency not only making them effective but also highly solubilizing semi/solid fats in vegetable oil at low temperature. One of the most important mechanisms of cleaning is solubilization capacity of surfactant system. Therefore, this work intended to form vegetable oil based micro emulsions for cleaning applications. The surfactant and oil interactions was investigated through the micro emulsion phase scan, IFT measurement and solubilization capacity. The anionic [C14-15H29-31-(PO)8-SO4Na] and nonionic C12-14H27-29-(EO)n-OH with three differences in EO groups (n=3, 5, and 9) and their mixture were investigated. Palm olein and palm strearin were selected and represented as a liquid and a solid vegetable oil, respectively. The results indicated that middle phase micro emulsion with palm olein was difficult to observe for all surfactant systems. The IFT results showed that at 4.6%w/v NaCl of single and mixed surfactant systems provided the lowest IFT value for each surfactant system. The result of solubilization capacity with palm stearin showed the highest solubilization capacity by mixed surfactant system [C14-15H29-31-(PO)8-SO4Na/C12-14H27-29-(EO)3-OH, 1:1 by molar ratio] at 4.6%w/v NaCl, representing by the molar solubilization ratio (MSR) value of 0.399 and micelle partition coefficient (Kmic ) of 6.30.