Phase nonionic surfactants

Fig. XIV-10. The correlation between the HLB number and the phase inversion temperature in cyclohexane of nonionic surfactants. (From Ref. 71.)...

The Kraft point (T ) is the temperature at which the erne of a surfactant equals the solubility. This is an important point in a temperature-solubility phase diagram. Below the surfactant cannot fonn micelles. Above the solubility increases with increasing temperature due to micelle fonnation. has been shown to follow linear empirical relationships for ionic and nonionic surfactants. One found [25] to apply for various ionic surfactants is ... 

Many solutions of common nonionic surfactants and water separate into two phases when heated above a certain temperature (the cloud point), and some investigators call the phase of greater surfactant concentration, a microemulsion. Thus, there is not even universal agreement that a microemulsion must contain oil. 

Eigure 6 illustrates how the three tensions among the top, middle, and bottom phases depend on temperature for a system of nonionic surfactant—oil—water (38), or on salinity for a representative system of anionic surfactant—cosurfactant—oil—water and electrolyte (39). As T approaches from lower temperatures, the composition of M approaches the composition of T, and the iaterfacial teasioa betweea them, goes to 2ero at T =. ... 

The most commonly used emulsifiers are sodium, potassium, or ammonium salts of oleic acid, stearic acid, or rosin acids, or disproportionate rosin acids, either singly or in mixture. An aLkylsulfate or aLkylarenesulfonate can also be used or be present as a stabilizer. A useful stabilizer of this class is the condensation product of formaldehyde with the sodium salt of P-naphthalenesulfonic acid. AH these primary emulsifiers and stabilizers are anionic and on adsorption they confer a negative charge to the polymer particles. Latices stabilized with cationic or nonionic surfactants have been developed for special apphcations. Despite the high concentration of emulsifiers in most synthetic latices, only a small proportion is present in the aqueous phase nearly all of it is adsorbed on the polymer particles. 

Finally, some general rules for the amount of surfactant appear to be vaHd (13). For anionic surfactants the average size of droplets is reduced for an increase of surfactant concentration up to the critical micellization concentration, whereas for nonionic surfactants a reduction occurs also for concentrations in excess of this value. The latter case may reflect the solubiHty of the nonionic surfactant in both phases, causing a reduction of interfacial tension at higher concentrations, or may reflect the stabilizing action of the micelles per se. 

Liquid Third Phase. A third Hquid with coUoidal stmcture has been a known component in emulsions since the 1970s (22) for nonionic surfactants of the poly(ethylene glycol) alkylaryl ether type. It allows low energy emulsification (23) using the strong temperature dependence of the coUoidal association stmctures in the water—surfactant—hydrocarbon systems. 

At low temperature, nonionic surfactants are water-soluble but at high temperatures the surfactant s solubUity in water is extremely smaU. At some intermediate temperature, the hydrophile—Hpophile balance (HLB) temperature (24) or the phase inversion temperature (PIT) (22), a third isotropic Hquid phase (25), appears between the oil and the water (Fig. 11). The emulsification is done at this temperature and the emulsifier is selected in the foUowing manner. Equal amounts of the oil and the aqueous phases with aU the components of the formulation pre-added are mixed with 4% of the emulsifiers to be tested in a series of samples. For the case of an o/w emulsion, the samples are left thermostated at 55°C to separate. The emulsifiers giving separation into three layers are then used for emulsification in order to find which one gives the most stable emulsion. 

Recent publications indicate the cloud-point extraction by phases of nonionic surfactant as an effective procedure for preconcentrating and separation of metal ions, organic pollutants and biologically active compounds. The effectiveness of the cloud-point extraction is due to its high selectivity and the possibility to obtain high coefficients of absolute preconcentrating while analyzing small volumes of the sample. Besides, the cloud-point extraction with non-ionic surfactants insures the low-cost, simple and accurate analytic procedures. 

Possibility of changing the properties of micellar phases by electrolyte inclusions was shown. Under this condition, in the systems with manifestation of complexes formation between the cationic compound of the electrolyte and the polyoxyethylene chain of the surfactant, increase of the hydrophilic properties of micellar phases was observed. The electrolytes that do not have affinity to the surfactant s molecule practically do not influence the liophily of the nonionic surfactant-rich phases. 

P. Sakya, J. M. Seddon, R. H. Templer, R. J. Mirkin, G. J. T. Tiddy. Micellar cubic phases and their structural relationships the nonionic surfactant system Ci2EOi2/water. Langmuir 75 3706-3714, 1997. 

Poloxamers are used primarily in aqueous solution and may be quantified in the aqueous phase by the use of compleximetric methods. However, a major limitation is that these techniques are essentially only capable of quantifying alkylene oxide groups and are by no means selective for poloxamers. The basis of these methods is the formation of a complex between a metal ion and the oxygen atoms that form the ether linkages. Reaction of this complex with an anion leads to the formation of a salt that, after precipitation or extraction, may be used for quantitation. A method reported to be rapid, simple, and consistently reproducible [18] involves a two-phase titration, which eliminates interferences from anionic surfactants. The poloxamer is complexed with potassium ions in an alkaline aqueous solution and extracted into dichloromethane as an ion pair with the titrant, tet-rakis (4-fluorophenyl) borate. The end point is defined by a color change resulting from the complexation of the indicator, Victoria Blue B, with excess titrant. The Wickbold [19] method, widely used to determine nonionic surfactants, has been applied to poloxamer type surfactants 120]. Essentially the method involves the formation in the presence of barium ions of a complex be-... 

Stable liquid detergents are obtained by polyacetalcarboxylate builders, ionic or nonionic surfactants, and common ingredients of detergents. If esters of phosphoric acid are used as anionic surfactants a detergent of this kind with 62% of water retained a single phase after a 30-day storage [213]. 

The phase inversion temperature (PIT) method is helpful when ethoxylated nonionic surfactants are used to obtain an oil-and-water emulsion. Heating the emulsion inverts it to a water-and-oil emulsion at a critical temperature. When the droplet size and interfacial tension reach a minimum, and upon cooling while stirring, it turns to a stable oil-and-water microemulsion form. " ... 

Guha S, PR Jaffe, CA Peters (1998) Bioavailability of mixtnres of PAHs partitioned into the micellar phase of a nonionic surfactant. Environ Sci Technol 32 2317-2324. 

Oil-in-water emulsions provide a cost-effective alternative to the methods mentioned previously, namely, heating or diluting. A typical transport emulsion is composed of 70% crude oil, 30% aqueous phase, and 500 to 2000 ppm of a stabilizing surfactant formulation [1497]. Nonionic surfactants are relatively insensitive to the salt content of the aqueous phase ethoxylated alkylphenols have been used successfully for the formation of stable emulsions that resist inversion. 

Drain the aqueous acetonitrile (lower) phase into a 500-mL round-bottom flask, and save the separatory funnel for extraction. Extract the hexane-fat mixture by transferring the mixture back to the polypropylene centrifuge bottle and adding 100 mL of acetonitrile-water (4 1, v/v) solution. Balance the duplicate centrifuge bottles, and cap and shake the bottles for 10 min on the shaker. Centrifuge the second extract at 11 000 rpm for 15 min. Decant this second extract into the 250-mL separatory funnel as before. After phase separation, combine the aqueous extracts in the 500-mL round-bottom flask, and discard the top hexane-fat layer. Add 10 drops of Dow Coming Antifoam B emulsion and 3 mL of 10% aqueous Igepal CO-660 (nonionic surfactant) to the flask. 

An alternate approach for biomolecule recover is to employ degradable surfactants [157]. A series of nonionic surfactants has been synthesized that contain the acidic pH-degradable cyclic ketal linkage [153]. These surfactants readily form w/o-MEs when at neutral pH or higher but, the surfactants readily degrade at moderately low pH (ca. 5), releasing the encapsulated aqueous phase and its constituents. Work is ongoing to develop these surfactants in w/o-ME protein extraction processes [153]. 

Normal-phase chromatography is still widely used for the determination of nonpolar additives in a variety of commercial products and pharmaceutical formulations, e.g. the separation of nonpolar components in the nonionic surfactant Triton X-100. Most of the NPLC analyses of polymer additives have been performed in isocratic mode [576]. However, isocratic HPLC methods are incapable of separating a substantial number of industrially used additives [605,608,612-616], Normal-phase chromatography of Irgafos 168, Irganox 1010/1076/3114 was shown [240]. NPLC-UV has been used for quantitative analysis of additives in PP/(Irganox 1010/1076, Irgafos 168) after Soxhlet extraction (88%... 

The sulfonate content was determined either by the well-known technique of two-phase titration with hyamine or by liquid chromatography (HPCL). Nonionic surfactants were analyzed by HPLC (16) in the reverse or normal phase mode depending on whether the aim was to determine their content in effluents or to compare their ethylene oxide distribution. 

Koukounis, C., Wade, U.H., and Schechter, R.S. "Phase Partitioning of Anionic and Nonionic Surfactant Matures," SPE paper 8261, 1979 SPE Annual Fall Technical Conference and Exhibition of AIME, Las Vegas, September 23 26. 

Benton, W.J. Raney, I.H, Miller, C.A. Enhanced Videomicroscopy of Phase Transitions and Diffusional Phenomena in Oil-Water-Nonionic Surfactant Systems, paper presented at the National AIChE Meeting, March 1985, Houston, Texas. 

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