Synthesis, surface activity, and corrosion inhibition of dentritic quaternary ammonium salt-type tetrameric surfactants

ABSTRACT

The dentritic quaternary ammonium salt-type tetrameric surfactant (4C₁₂tetraQ) was synthesized, and the molecular structure was confirmed by ¹H NMR and FTIR. The surface activity of 4C₁₂tetraQ was investigated by surface tension, and surface chemical parameters, such as critical micelle concentration (cmc), efficiency (pC₂₀), effectiveness (π_cmc), the surface tension value at cmc (γ_cmc), minimum surface area (A_min), maximum surface excess (Γ_max), and cmc/C₂₀ were obtained from the measurement results. The results show that the 4C₁₂tetraQ surfactant has higher surface activity than the traditional monomeric surfactants (dodecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide, DTAB). The Krafft points were taken as <0°C, indicating that the synthesized tetrameric surfactants had good water solubility. Free energies of micellization and adsorption show that 4C₁₂tetraQ display greater propensity to absorb at the interface than form micelle in the bulk of the aqueous solution, and that the two processes are spontaneous. The measurement results show that 4C₁₂tetraQ has good emulsification power and foam performance. The corrosion efficiency was evaluated with the loss weight method in 1 mol/L HCl solution, and the results show that the 4C₁₂tetraQ surfactant has good corrosion inhibition, and can be considered as a corrosion inhibitor.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Corrosion inhibition
• emulsification
• surface activity
• tetrameric surfactant

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51674085). We thank for the support of this work by grants foundation program of Northeast Petrolrum University (NEPUPU-1-11).