Study of the Synthesis of Branched Chain Alkyl Polyglucosides from Guerbet Alcohol in an Acid/Phase Transfer Catalyst System and Their Properties

Abstract The synthesis of branched-chain alkyl polyglucosides (APG) from 2-butyl-1-octanol, a Guerbet alcohol, in an acid/phase transfer catalyst (PTC) system was studied. Under optimized conditions the conversion rate of this reaction was 98.4% and the selectivity 16.5:1 (APG to polysaccharide, w/o). The APG was characterized by HPLC, LC/MS and 1 HNMR. The surfactant properties showed that the wetting time was 17.9 s, and the emulsification time of a 0.15% aqueous solution with soybean oil was 22 min 44 s and with liquid paraffin 11 min 05 s. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) was 5 · 10 −4 mol/L, and the surface tension was 25.87 mN/m with a 1% aqueous solution. It is a low foaming surfactant.