Glyceryl ether sulfonates glycidyl ethers

FIGURE 8.4 Chemistry for the production of glyceryl ether sulfonates from glycidyl ethers. 

The chloro-glyceryl ethers described earlier can be converted into the final glyceryl ether sulfonate by a Streckerization reaction, that is, use of sodium sulfite to perform sulfonation. However, the resulting composition of the surfactant will have an increased amount of sodium chloride by-product, which is very difficult to remove from the product. Therefore, it is recommended that an additional reaction step be performed to dehalogenate the product into a glycidyl ether. 

The aqueous sulfite/bisulfite solution is reacted with the glycidyl ethers to produce the final sulfonated product. As seen in Figure 8.4, the epoxide group as well as any chlorine atoms on the higher oligomers are sulfonated. For each mole of sodium sulfite that is reacted, an equimolar amount of sodium chloride is produced. Looking at the chemistry, it is easy to surmise that the chloro-glyceryl ethers from step 1 (Section 8.2) could have been used in this reaction with only sodium sulfite, but an excess of the undesired salt by-product would have been formed. 

Dichloro-glycidyl ether sulfite/ bisulfite Tri-glyceryl ether sulfonate... 

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