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Optimized Microemulsion Systems for Detergency of Vegetable Oils at Low Surfactant Concentration and Bath Temperature

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Journal of Surfactants and Detergents

Abstract

Triglycerides and vegetable oils are amongst the most difficult oils to remove from fabrics due to their highly hydrophobic nature; this is all the more challenging as cold water detergency is pursued in the interest of energy efficiency. Recently, extended surfactants have produced very encouraging detergency performance at ambient temperature, especially at low surfactant concentration. However, the salinity requirement for extended surfactants was excessive (4–14%) and there is limited research on extended-surfactant-based microemulsions for cold water detergency (below 25 °C). Therefore, extended-surfactant-based microemulsions are introduced in this study for cold temperature detergency of vegetable oils with promising salinity and surfactant concentration. The overall goal of this study is to explore the optimized microemulsion formulations with low surfactant and salt concentration using extended surfactant for canola oil detergency at both 25 and 10 °C. It was found that microemulsion systems achieved good performances (higher than those of commercial detergents) corresponding to IFT value 0.1–1 mN/m with the surfactant concentration as low as 10 ppm and 4% NaCl at 25 °C, and as low as 250 ppm and 0.1% (1000 ppm) NaCl at 10 °C. In addition, microemulsion systems were investigated with a different salt (CaCl2, or water hardness, versus NaCl) at 10 °C, demonstrating that 0.025% CaCl2 (250 ppm) can produce good detergency; this is in the hardness range of natural water. These results provide qualitative guidance for microemulsion formulations of vegetable oil detergency and for future design of energy-efficient microemulsion systems.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Thu Nguyen, Geoff Russell, and Victoria Stolarski from Sasol North America (Lake Charles, LA) for providing the extended surfactant samples. Funding for this work was provided by industrial sponsors of the Institute for Applied Surfactant Research at the University of Oklahoma: CESI Chemical Research, Church and Dwight, Clorox, Ecolab, Haliburton, Huntsman, Ingevity, Novus, Procter and Gamble, Sasol North America, S. C. Johnson & Son and Shell Chemical.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand

    Chodchanok Attaphong

  2. School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    David A. Sabatini

  3. Institute for Applied Surfactant Research, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    David A. Sabatini

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  1. Chodchanok Attaphong
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  2. David A. Sabatini
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Correspondence to Chodchanok Attaphong.

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Attaphong, C., Sabatini, D.A. Optimized Microemulsion Systems for Detergency of Vegetable Oils at Low Surfactant Concentration and Bath Temperature. J Surfact Deterg 20, 805–813 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11743-017-1962-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11743-017-1962-8

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