Synthesis and Surface-Active Properties of Uronic Amide Derivatives, Surfactants from Renewable Organic Raw Materials

Short chemical syntheses were developed to produce a new set of surfactants from uronic acids derived from widely available raw material. Three different strategies were used to synthesise uronic amide derivatives, the structures of which were totally characterized by spectrometric methods (IR, MS, 1H-RMN and 13C-RMN). The best one, using an acid chloride as synthetic intermediate, furnished the expected amides as a mixture of anomers in 46 to 58 % global yield. Surface-active properties (CMC, g cmc, Tmax, Amin) of homologous series of uronic acid N-alkylamides from C8 to C18 were also assessed. In general, these sugar-based surfactants exhibited good surface-activities, and appeared as valuable non ionic surfactants compared to Triton X-100, the most well-known non ionic surfactant. Increasing the alkyl chain length influenced the CMC values for both glucuronic and galacturonic N-alkylamide derivatives. The galacturonic N-alkylamides decreased g cmc at slower values than their counterpart's glucuronic N-alkylamides.