Surface-active, micellar, and antielectrostatic properties of bis-ammonium salts

A series of new cationic surfactants, bis-quaternary ammonium dibromides, were synthesized. The properties of these surfactants were characterized by surface tension measurements, conductivity study, and dynamic light scattering. The surface properties, such as surface excess concentration, Gamma(cmc), surface area demand per molecule, A(min), efficiency in surface tension reduction, pC(20), the effectiveness of surface tension reduction, gamma(min), critical micelle concentration, cmc, and standard free energy of micellization, DeltaG(mic)(0) and DeltaG(ads)(0), were obtained by means of surface tension measurements. The antielectrostatic properties were investigated by measuring the surface resistance, the half-charge decay time, and the maximum voltage induced on polyethylene films and propylene unwoven fabrics. Critical micellar concentrations (cmc) of investigated salts were much lower than those of the monomeric salt DTAC. The results obtained in this work were compared to analogous bis-quaternary ammonium dichlorides and well-known gemini cationic surfactants. It was found that the type of counterion had an impact on the values of the micelle ionization degree and the hydrodynamic diameters. Larger aggregates were found for bis-quaternary ammonium dibromides, which had smaller values of the ionization micelle degree than bis-quaternary ammonium dichlorides. Moreover, the antielectrostatic effect strongly depended on the kind of counterion. All investigated salts had very good antistatic properties.