Imidazoline distribution

Imidazolines have been shown to have biological utility as antidepressants, and imidazoline ligands are known for a number of receptors widely distributed in both the peripheral and central nervous system.39 The imidazoline moiety has also been extensively studied as an amide bond... 

For personal care applications, the major products in this group are amphoacetates or amphodiacetates , generally based on alkyl hydroxyethyl imidazolines from either a whole coconut fatty acid distribution or a lauric cut. The ampho portion of their name is a convention established by the International Nomenclature Committee for Cosmetic Products (INCI) to indicate that they are derived from imidazoline structures. The INCI nomenclature applied to these materials, amphoacetate and amphodiacetate, is intended to give an indication of the stoichiometry used to produce them, either 1 or 2 mol of sodium chloroacetate is added to each mole of fatty imidazoline. Modern analytical methods have been used to determine the structure of these products and almost all of them are actually monoacetates . The main difference between amphoacetates and ampho diacetates is the composition of the by-products. 

As mentioned above, most commercial products are based on either a lauric (mainly C-12) or a whole coconut distribution (C-8 to C-18, with approximately 50% C-12) since these alkyl distributions give the best detergency. Early on, the imidazoline derived amphoterics were characterized as exceptionally mild to the skin and eyes relative to most surfactants available at the time. This made them excellent candidates for use in baby shampoos, geriatric cleansing products, hand wash for medical facilities and so on. 

The synthesis of these surfactants involves several steps. The first step is the preparation of a substituted imidazoline, usually l-(hydroxyethyl)-2-alkyl imidazoline, starting from fatty acids or fatty acid methyl esters and aminoethylethanolamine (AEEA) (Figure 15.15). For the production of betaines, the choice of fatty material is in most cases hydrogenated coco fatty acid. The distribution composition of fatty acid chain lengths, given above in Table 15.2, is typical also for cocoam-phoacetates. 

Imidazoline-2 receptors are highly distributed on astrocyte mitochondrial membranes (Tesson etal. 1992, Regunathan etal. 1993). In primary cultures of neonatal rat astrocytes, imidazoline drugs, such as idazoxan, guanabenz, guanfacine, BU224, and RS-45041-190, showed protective effects against naphthazarin-induced oxidative cyto-... 

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