Novel bioactive petrodispersing agents based on cationic polymeric surfactant: Design, synthesis, and surface indices

Abstract

Novel bioactive cationic polymeric surfactants based on fatty acid derived from natural wastes were developed with different hydrophilic head groups, which were employed for collecting the thin petroleum film from water surface and dispersing it. The preparation procedures pass through three steps, in first step lauryl methacrylate (LMA) was copolymerized with methacrylic acid (MAA) with different feed from the two monomers to obtain five copolymers of poly(LMA-co-MAA) (P1-5) of different molar ratio. In second step, carboxylic groups in copolymers (P1-5) were esterified with N,N‘-dimethyl-ethanol amine and finally the modified copolymers (PE1-5) were quaternized with Butyl-2-chloroacetate and Hexyl-2-chloroacetate to afford the bioactive PSB1-5 and PSH1-5, respectively. The structure of synthetic compounds was confirmed by FT-IR and 1H NMR. Upon examination, the surface-active characteristics of the bioactive petrodispersing agents that were synthesized exhibited significant defoaming capacity, good wettability, and foaming qualities. The synthesized PSB1-5 and PSH1-5 were applied for petro-collecting and dispersing in solid state and diluted form on three water sources. In sea water and diluted form, the results showed that PSB1-5 showed better effects than PSH1-5. Also, the antimicrobial efficiency of the synthesized PSB(1-5) and PSH(1-5) were tested. The data obtained from FT-IR and 1H NMR spectra proved the esterification of carboxylic group in copolymers due to the appearing of peak at 1738 cm−1 for carbonyl group of formed esters and the disappearing for proton of carboxylic group in 1H NMR. Also, data obtained from antimicrobial studies showed that the highest inhibition zone diameter against C. albicans, L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, Salmonella sp. and E. coli were observed for PSH(1-5). Which PSH-2 gives the highest value of inhibition zone diameter of 3.2 mm against L. monocytogenes. The results exhibited that PSH(1-5) showed the stronger antimicrobial functions than PSB(1-5).