Without it, surfactants would be eclipsed! -- Fatty alcohol

Fatty alcohols are alcohols with aliphatic groups of 8 to 22 carbon atomic chains. Fatty alcohols usually have an even number of carbon atoms and a hydroxyl group 

attached to the end of the carbon chain.

One of the raw materials of surfactants used in detergents. The general formula is ROH. The R of alcohols used in detergents is generally a hydrocarbon group of C12~C18. 

This high-carbon fatty alcohologen has amphiphilic properties, that is, there are hydrophobic groups such as hydrocarbon chains and hydrophilic groups such as hydroxyl groups in the molecule. However, because the solubility in water is very low, it is necessary to add a hydrophilic group or convert the hydroxyl group into a sulfuric acid group, so that the hydrophilic oil balance value reaches the necessary value, and the fatty alcohol derivative has enough hydrophilic groups to dissolve in water and can become a aggregate (micelle), this fatty alcohol derivative is a surfactant. For example, dodecyl alcohol is insoluble in water, but when it becomes sodium dodecyl sulfate, due to the attachment of a sulfuric acid group (-SO3-), the water solubility becomes good, and can form micelles in water, and at a certain concentration, it shows very good surface activity.

People are using this property, fatty alcohols as raw materials, to produce a variety of surfactants with various excellent properties.

Fatty alcohol was first made from whale wax, and the resulting mixed fatty alcohol became sulfate after sulfonation and neutralization, which was the first anionic detergent. Later, it developed and used coconut oil, palm oil and butter from rich sources as raw materials. The fatty acids obtained by hydrolysis are then reduced to alcohols. Collectively known as natural fatty alcohols. After the development of petrochemical industry, fatty alcohols produced by petroleum products as raw materials are called synthetic fatty alcohols. The important methods for producing fatty alcohols are high-pressure hydrogenation, Ziegler process and carbonyl synthesis. If the hair mask contains unsaturated fatty alcohol, it can repair and nourish hair; Adding fatty alcohol to lip gloss can enhance the smoothness of the product when used.

Natural advanced fatty alcohol is the basic raw material of fine chemical products such as detergents, surfactants and plastic plasticizers. There are thousands of fine chemical products produced by it, which are widely used in chemical, petroleum, metallurgy, textile, machinery, mining, construction, plastics, rubber, leather, paper making, transportation, food, medicine and health, daily chemical and agricultural sectors.

Fatty alcohols can produce many derivatives. Alcohol series surfactants are the fastest developing products among all kinds of surfactants since 1980s. As a detergent active substance, it has strong decontamination ability, good compatibility, low foam, easy biodegradation, hard water resistance and low temperature water washing good properties, has been gradually replacing straight chain alkyl benzene sulfonate (LAS) and dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid, becoming the third generation of detergent raw materials. Here the most representative varieties are fatty alcohols and ethylene oxide synthesis AEO3 ~ 9, etc., can also be further sulfonated to produce AES, these alcohols are surfactants, widely used, large demand, and the improvement of daily life and quality of life is very close, the real market and potential market is broad, therefore, for fatty alcohols, especially natural lipoform alcohol production, Provides a broader world.

Plastic auxiliaries are the auxiliary raw materials of plastics industry, and the auxiliaries industry develops with the development of plastics industry. The rapid development of China's plastic industry, it is well known that in 1985 the world consumed 13 million tons of various plastic additives, and plasticizer is one of the largest amount of plastic additives, the current foreign plasticizer production capacity has exceeded 4.5 million tons, China's capacity has exceeded 500,000 tons. In the plasticizer, the production of dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and dioctyl phthalate (DOP), in addition to the production of phthalic anhydride raw materials, butanol and octanol are also the main raw materials, at present, China consumes more than 300,000 tons of butanol and octanol to produce these two plasticizers. However, the carbon chain of butanol and octanol is short, and the plasticizer produced by them is far from meeting the development needs of the plastic processing industry in terms of heat resistance, weather resistance, electrical insulation properties, etc. At present, high-carbon chain fatty alcohols, such as C10, C12, C14, C16, C18 and other alcohols, are being tested to replace butanol and octanol. It can produce plastic products with excellent heat resistance, weather resistance and electrical insulation properties, and promote the expansion of plastic use. Therefore, the application of high-carbon fatty alcohols in the plastic plasticizer industry is also quite promising.

The application of natural fatty alcohol in daily chemical industry is better than that of chemical synthetic alcohol, compared with the two, even if various physical and chemical quality indicators are the same, but people still prefer to use natural alcohol, which has become a popular "green" trend. Therefore, natural fatty alcohols are ideal raw materials in the cosmetics industry, such as the production of liquid and paste soaps, toothpaste, cosmetic cream, etc.