Automated analyses of non-ionic surfactants in terms of hydrophobic and polyoxyethylated chain lengths

Abstract

A novel automated system for the analysis of polyoxyethylated (POE) non-ionic surfactants is proposed, which is capable of providing information on both hydrophobic and POE chain lengths. A polystyrene-divinylbenzene copolymer gel is effective for the hydrophobic chain analysis because the separation is not influenced by the distribution of POE chains. On the other hand, a K+-form cation-exchange resin is effective for elucidating the distribution of POE chains. An automated system was constructed by combining these two separation methods, and was applied to the analysis of the distributions of hydrophobic and POE chains in a commercial Brij 35. © 1992.