Development of New Surfactant from Renewable Resources

With a view to develop an industrially viable and economically feasible process for the preparation of non-toxic, completely and easily biodegradable surface active agents, derived entirely from renewable resources of the country, a long range study has been undertaken in our laboratory. The title compounds have been prepared by the transesterification reaction between fatty acid esters and sucrose. The products obtained have been purified and tested for their performance as surface active agents. The different surface active properties determined are detergency, surface tension, foaming, wetting and emulsification. The present work shows that some of the compounds are as active as the standard compounds like sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate. Most of these compounds exhibit large drop in surface tension. The cmc obtained by the surface tension versus log concentration curves is found to be in the range of 0.02 to .07 per cent. These compounds are very good detergents and emulsifiers with a moderate wetting property.