Cleaning Ability of Mixed Solutions of Sulfonated Fatty Acid Methyl Esters

Abstract

Here, we present results from a systematic study on cleaning of oily deposits from solid surfaces (porcelain and stainless steel) by solutions of fatty acid sulfonated methyl esters (SME), sodium salts. The zwitterionic dodecyldimethylamine oxide (DDAO) has been used as a cosurfactant. As representatives of the vegetable and mineral oils, sunflower seed oil and light mineral oil have been used. The process of oil drop detachment from the solid substrates (roll-up mechanism) has been monitored. In the case of porcelain, excellent cleaning of oil is achieved by mixed solutions of SME and DDAO. In the case of stainless steel, excellent cleaning (superior than that by linear alkylbenzene sulfonate and sodium lauryl ether sulfate) is provided by binary and ternary mixtures of SME, which may contain also DDAO. For the studied systems, the good cleaning correlates neither with the oil/water interfacial tension, nor with the surfactant chainlength and headgroup type. The data imply that governing factors might be the thickness and morphology of admicelle layers formed on the solid/water interface. The results indicate that the SME mixtures represent a promising system for formulations in house-hold detergency, having in mind also other useful properties of SME, such as biodegradability, skin compatibility, and hard water tolerance.

Non‐fuel uses for fatty acid methyl esters

“…Sulfonated FAME shows similar performance and has the advantage of being bio-based and less toxic. 42 One issue in the production of sulfonated FAME is the undesired production of di-salt side products. This is an issue because the Krafft point of the di-salt is much higher than that of the main product, alpha-methyl ester sulfonate (α-MES).…”

“…The FAME sulfonate mixture demonstrated increased cleanability of oil through full oil drop detachment from the substrate, while linear alkyl benzene and sodium lauryl ether sulfonates showed no oil drop detachment when drop detachment experiments were performed on stainless steel. 42…”

Performance of Green Surfactants in the Formulation of Heavy-Duty Laundry Liquid Detergents (HDLD) with Special Emphasis on Palm Based Alpha Methyl Ester Sulfonates (α-MES)

“…At temperature below Krafft point, surfactants will form precipitates instead of micelle, which result in less effective performance of surfactants in cleaning 37) . The Krafft points of α-MES surfactants are in the range of 10.1℃ to 24.8℃ depending on their carbon chain length while it is 65℃ for their di-salt 37,38) . Therefore, with higher Krafft point and presence of large amount of di-salt, significant amount of precipitates will form and reduce the solubility of surfactant, result in poorer quality of α-MES 37) .…”

α‐Sulfo Fatty Methyl Ester Sulfonate: A Review on Chemistry, Processing Technologies, Performance, and Applications in Laundry Detergents

“…However, with continuous and active research and development activities, these technical issues were resolved in the nineties. At the beginning of the new millennium, α-MES has been accepted widely as a surfactant with superior detergency, water hardness tolerance, rapid biodegradability, and low production cost (Martinez et al, 2010;Yavrukova et al, 2020). It has the potential to substitute LABS and other oleochemical-based anionic surfactants such as fatty alcohol sulfates (FAS) and fatty alcohol ether sulfates (FAES) (Ismail et al, 2002).…”