Study On The Synthesis And Properties Of A Chelating Surfactant

N-dodecylethylenediaminetriacetic acid is a new type of chelating surfactants, which were in need of developing non-phorus detergents. They are named as green surfactants for excellent physical and chemical properties. They will be studied well as one of hot spots for the present.In this paper, N-dodecylethylenediaminetriacetic acid was synthesized through three-step reactions of bromination, N-unialkylation and carboxymethylation with dodecanol, ethylenediamine and chloroacetic as starting materials. The reaction mechanism were discussed. The effects of various conditions to the reaction were optimized by unifactor experiment. Under the optimum reaction condition, the total yield reached 84.5%. The structures of the products were characterized by IR, ~1H-NMR and MS. In addition, Some physical and chemical properties of N-dodecylethylenediaminetriacetic acid such as surface tension, CMC, chelation, corrosion inhibition, foam activity, emulsifying activity and so on, were determined and proved to be good.