Development of a new series of polyamine-type polymeric surfactants used for emulsion liquid membranes

By summarizing studies of surfactants used for emulsion liquid membrane, a new polyamine-type surfactant called LMA has been developed. This type of surfactant is composed of copolymer of isobutene and isoprene in hydrophobic site and polyethylene polyamine [NH2(CH2CH2NH)nCH2CH2NH2, n≥1] in hydrophilic site. Experimental results show that the characteristics of this surfactant mainly depends on its mean molecular weight and its distribution of molecular weight, and the suitable surfactants are those with number-average molecular weight (Mn) of 5000–9000 and proper molecular weight distribution (usually Mw/Mn=3.0–6.0).