Synthesis and properties of dihydroxyoleic acid methyl ester ethoxylates

Abstract

In this paper, epoxy methyl oleate (EMO) was used as the raw material to obtain the dihydroxyoleic acid methyl ester (DHOME) through ring-opening reaction. Then, the DHOME was reacted with ethylene oxide (EO) under Al-Mg composite oxide catalyst to synthesize a novel nonionic surfactant: dihydroxyoleic acid methyl ester ethoxylate (DHOMEE), which has both alcohol polyether and ester polyether chains. FT-IR was used to characterize the molecular structure of target product. Products with different EO addenda (DHOMEE-10, DHOMEE-15, DHOMEE-20) and conventional nonionic surfactants fatty acid methyl ester ethoxylate (FMEE) and methyl oleate ethoxylate (OMEE) were compared in terms of application performance. The results showed that DHOMEE is superior to conventional surfactants in terms of wetting, emulsification, foam and surface tension. In similar products, the performance of DHOMEE-15 is better than those of DHOMEE-10 and DHOMEE-20.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Dihydroxyoleic acid methyl ester ethoxylate (DHOMEE)
• ethoxylation
• Nonionic surfactant
• surfactant synthesis

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0308800) and key R & D program in Shanxi Province (201603D421036). In addition, we would like to thank the supported by JALA Research Funds (JALA 2016).