Year : 2021
Mentors : Shibu Pillai
Students involved : 18BCH001 - Viral Amasara, 18BCH003 - Aritra Mondal
Surfactants are an important class of chemicals with various applications in both industrial and consumer sectors. Some of the common applications of surfactants include cleansing of various surfaces and fabrics, enhanced oil recovery, separation
of oil and water phases extracted from the surface of the Earth, production of leather, production of various dyes and paints. Surfactants are usually classified on the charge of the polarity or charge present on the group head; Gemini Surfactants are a special class of novel surfactants that have more than one hydrophilic head groups and multiple hydrophilic tail groups that are separated by a spacer or near these head group. These Gemini Surfactants are observed to have novel properties which are desirable in surfactants. Some of these properties would include low values of CMC (Critical Micelle Concentration), C 20 values (measurement of the tendency of a surfactant to absorb at an oil water interface), have a good amount soluble into the water, unusual it’s shown the aggregated behavior. unusual micelle structures, very high efficiency in decreasing the interfacial tension between an oil and water interface, also it has a variety of interesting rheological properties. These properties account for the immense interest academics and experts in the field have shown in this class of surfactants. The very high efficiency of these surfactants in decreasing the interfacial surface tension between the oil and water surfaces can be especially beneficial in aiding processes like EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery), these surfactants can aid in increasing the overall efficiency of the EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) process. Here, we are trying to synthesize bio-based Gemini surfactants and then check how well these will perform instead of traditional surfactants in various applications. Surfactants are used as a staple in the cleaning industry, surfactants are vastly responsible for the cleaning action in most cleaning products like laundry detergents and dishwashing liquids. These are two sector which are heavily dependent on the use of surfactants and we will try to use these new bio-based surfactants to replace traditional surfactants in these applications. This change can account for the overall improvement in efficiency of the products and processes involving surfactants. This would translate to an overall decrease in the amount of surfactant required for the process, in turn increasing the overall efficiency of the process in discussion. Moreover, these bio-based Gemini surfactants are developed using green methods which have do not affect the environment in any way, also these surfactants are usually bio-degradable which mean that these decompose easily when dumped into the environment or are sent along with solid waste for processing methods like composting. Thus, from all these we can see that these bio-based surfactants seem very promising in terms of increasing efficiency of the overall processes while being environment friendly as compared to traditional surfactants. The aim we are trying to achieve here is to quantify how much better these bio-based surfactants are in terms of performance and efficiency over traditional surfactants. Modern science requires materials which perform better while being more efficient while being environment friendly and these bio-based Gemini surfactants seem to be a worthy contender for the purpose.