Surface activity, wetting and foaming properties of amine-oxidized nonionic fluorocarbon surfactant and hydrocarbon anionic surfactants mixtures at low concentrations

Abstract

Traditional perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) fluorocarbon surfactants are harmful to human health and environment. For this reason, a kind of low surface energy, environmentally friendly perfluorocarbon nonionic surfactant was prepared, and its surface property, aggregation behavior, foaming performance and wettability were systematically studied. The non-ionic fluorocarbon surfactant showed high surface activity in aqueous solution with the surface tension of 20.80 mN/m and the critical micelle concentration of 0.0043 mol/L. Besides, the amine-oxidized non-ionic fluorocarbon surfactant / SDS mixture had the good synergistic effect on the surface activity. It possessed good wettability at the low concentration (0.0022 mol/L), and its foaming performance and foam stability were improved with the increase of temperature. Also, the PTFE plate with low surface energy could be completely wetted by the compound solution. Moreover, the composite value of foam at 50℃ was as high as 54000 mL·s, which might be due to the superior surface activity and appropriate viscosity of the compound solution. Therefore, this study provided a potential process route for the development of high-performance foaming agents at high temperature.