Ji-Yoon Yang, 2012:
The emphasis in developing detergents relies on the use of easily accessible, renewable primary products and the minimization of surfactant concentration. Linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) are widely-used laundry surfactants. With the goal of their replacement by more powerful and more ecologically beneficial surfactants, this diploma thesis deals with the characterization of their phase behavior in simple microemulsion systems using the example of LAS. Starting with the framework H2O (16°dH)/NaCl – n-decane – SLES, LAS was introduced into this system by alternating variations of salt concentration und co-surfactant. Furthermore the system H2O – n-octane – LAS was titrated at the mean washing temperature of 40° C with the co-surfactant n-hexanol operating as the tuning parameter. In addition, the influence of potential soil components on the phase behavior was studied, and artificial skin fat (formulated according to BEY) and triolein, which is contained in many edible oils, were brought into the system by systematic variations of the co-oil. The influence of various salt concentrations was also examined. Using the measured phase diagrams as bench marks, novel surfactants that are of interest can be compared to LAS.