A new type of anionic surfactant with four carboxylates for the preparation of mesoporous materials

Abstract

In this paper, a new type of anionic surfactant containing four carboxylates was synthesized by a four-step synthetic reaction including bromination reaction and primary amide protective reaction. Intermediates and final products of each step in the whole synthetic process were characterized by ¹H NMR and MS. Purification of the anionic surfactant was accomplished through combination of recrystallization and silica gel column chromatography. The structure and the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of this surfactant at different temperatures were also investigated. Unlike traditional mono-carboxylate surfactant easy to form lamellar mesostructure, this surfactant has the hexagonal mesophase structure and comparatively low CMC, hopefully to be applied in the preparation of mesoporous metal oxides.

Keywords

surfactant / four carboxylates / hexagonal mesosphase / critical micelle concentration (CMC)