Synthesis, surface activity, and corrosion inhibition of dentritic quaternary ammonium salt-type tetrameric surfactants

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe dentritic quaternary ammonium salt-type tetrameric surfactant (4C12tetraQ) was synthesized, and the molecular structure was confirmed by 1H NMR and FTIR. The surface activity of 4C12tetraQ was investigated by surface tension, and surface chemical parameters, such as critical micelle concentration (cmc), efficiency (pC20), effectiveness (πcmc), the surface tension value at cmc (γcmc), minimum surface area (Amin), maximum surface excess (Γmax), and cmc/C20 were obtained from the measurement results. The results show that the 4C12tetraQ surfactant has higher surface activity than the traditional monomeric surfactants (dodecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide, DTAB). The Krafft points were taken as <0°C, indicating that the synthesized tetrameric surfactants had good water solubility. Free energies of micellization and adsorption show that 4C12tetraQ display greater propensity to absorb at the interface than form micelle in the bulk of the aqueous solution, and that the two processes are spontaneous. The measurement results show that 4C12tetraQ has good emulsification power and foam performance. The corrosion efficiency was evaluated with the loss weight method in 1 mol/L HCl solution, and the results show that the 4C12tetraQ surfactant has good corrosion inhibition, and can be considered as a corrosion inhibitor.