Ethylene oxide detergents from

Water-Soluble Films. Water-soluble films can be produced from such polymers as poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH), methylceUulose, poly(ethylene oxide), or starch (qv) (see Cellulose ethers Polyethers Vinyl polymers). Water-soluble films are used for packaging and dispensing portions of detergents, bleaches, and dyes. A principal market is disposable laundry bags for hospital use. Disposal packaging for herbicides and insecticides is an emerging use. 

Sulfation by sulfamic acid has been used ia the preparation of detergents from dodecyl, oleyl, and other higher alcohols. It is also used ia sulfating phenols and phenol—ethylene oxide condensation products. Secondary alcohols react ia the presence of an amide catalyst, eg, acetamide or urea (24). Pyridine has also been used. Tertiary alcohols do not react. Reactions with phenols yield phenyl ammonium sulfates. These reactions iaclude those of naphthols, cresol, anisole, anethole, pyrocatechol, and hydroquinone. Ammonium aryl sulfates are formed as iatermediates and sulfonates are formed by subsequent rearrangement (25,26). 

Linear ethoxylates are the preferred raw materials for production of ether sulfates used in detergent formulations because of uniformity, high purity, and biodegradabihty. The alkyl chain is usually in the to range having a molar ethylene oxide alcohol ratio of anywhere from 1 1 to 7 1. 

Many laundry and dish detergents as well as shampoos are made from chemicals based on ethylene oxide. 

Nonionic surfactants contain (Fig. 23) no ionic functionalities, as their name implies, and include ethylene oxide adducts (EOA) of alkylphenols and fatty alcohols. Production of detergent chain-length fatty alcohols from both natural and petrochemical precursors has now increased with the usage of alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEO) for some applications. This is environmentally less acceptable because of the slower rate of biodegradation and concern regarding the toxicity of phenolic residues [342]. 

For good detergency the length of the ethenoxy chain should carefully balance the hydrophobic part of the molecule. In the above example, from eight to ten such groups appear to be optimum. The ethylene oxide for these products comes from petroleum ethylene, either by direct oxidation or decomposition of ethylene chlorohydrin (17). 

The optimum alcohol and amount of ethylene oxide is dependent upon the type of soil and the type of foam desired for for the finished product. Figure 1(4) shows the optimum ethylene oxide content in a heavy-duty powder formulation similar to that shown in the foregoing. Lines are "isodets"—lines of equal detergency ranging from a lower detergency rating of 1 to a high of 4. 

Ethoxylation of the alcohols to biodegradable detergent species using ethylene oxide from direct ethylene oxidation. This process is also in wide use. 

The noncovalent adsorption of proteins by p.CP is experimentally simple, but suffers from the disadvantage that the attachment can be reversible by rinsing the pattern with certain buffers and detergents or replacement by other proteins in solution. Moreover, the orientation of the deposited protein is not controlled. Delamarche et al. proposed the use of stamps modified with poly(ethylene oxide) silanes.100 The modification was conducted by oxidation of the PDMS stamp and reaction with APTES to yield an amino-functionalized surface. The next step was the reaction with homobifunctional cross-linker BS3 to bind surface amino groups with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains (Fig. 14.10). 

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