Effect of Extended Surfactant Structure on Interfacial Tension and Microemulsion Formation with Triglycerides

In this work, the impacts of extended surfactant structure (number of polypropylene oxide PO groups and branching nature of the hydrocarbon chain) on microemulsion formation and IFT values were examined with triglyceride oils. The results show that branching of the hydrocarbon tail of extended surfactants lowers optimum salinity and IFT values. The results also show that for the surfactants studied ultralow IFTs and microemulsion formation with vegetable oils can be achieved using extended surfactants with at least eight PO groups.