Synthesis of new family of anionic/nonionic surfactant moieties based on mono maleate derivatives and investigate their physical properties

This study focuses on the preparation of a new family of di-moiety surfactants, both anionic and nonionic, through a three-step process. In the first step, maleic anhydride was subjected to ring opening using three different alcohols: decanol, dodecanol, and tetradecanol. The second step involved the esterification of the resulting compounds from the first step with polyethylene glycol 400, 600, and 1000, resulting in the production of nine nonionic surfactants. In the third step, sulfonation of the products from the second step was carried out using sodium bisulfite, resulting in nine anionic/nonionic surfactants identified as S₁₀-400, S₁₀-600, S₁₀-1000, S₁₂-400, S₁₂-600, S₁₂-1000, S₁₄-400, S₁₄-600, and S₁₄-1000. The chemical composition of the synthesized compounds was analyzed using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (H¹NMR) techniques. To evaluate the surface-active properties of the surfactants, surface and interfacial tension techniques were employed. The data obtained from surface and interfacial tension measurements indicated that these surfactants exhibited exceptional surface activity. Notably, S_14-1000 demonstrated the most significant reduction in surface tension (19 mN/m) and the lowest interfacial tension (2.4 mN/m). Contact angle measurements revealed that this new group of surfactants, possessing two functional groups, displayed favorable behavior in terms of altering wettability. These findings suggest that these surfactants hold promise for potential applications in enhanced oil recovery processes.