FATTY AMINE ETHOXYLATE

FATTY AMINE ETHOXYLATE

Fatty amine ethoxylates are nonionic surfactants used as wetting and dispersing agents, stabilizers, sanitizers and defoaming agents in various industries like textile, paper, drilling, chemical, paint, metal etc. 
The fatty amine ethoxylates are used as emulsifiers and can also be employed in formulation of emulsifier blends. 
They play an important role as emulsifiers in agrochemical industries, cleaners in industrial processes especially in metal industry, oil field chemicals, fabric softeners, petroleum additives and for applications in textile and leather processing, paper de-inking, mining & drilling.

Production of fatty amines ethoxylate products takes place when the amines like amino acids, tallow amines, oleyl amine, coco amine, stearyl amines etc are made to react with ethylene oxide in presence of a catalyst in ethoxylation process. 
Fatty amines are nitrogen derivatives of fatty acids, olefins, or alcohols prepared from natural sources, fats and oils, or petrochemical raw materials. 
The commercially available fatty amines are prepared by either distillation of fatty acids or when fatty alcohols are reacted with ammonia or primary, secondary amines.

Some of the popular forms of ethoxylated amines widely used in industrial processes include the tallow amines, coco amines, stearyl amines and oleyl amines.

The popular product used for soaps, leather dressings, candles, food, and lubricant applications in industries, tallow amine ethoxylate is derived from ethoxylation of tallow amine which is prepared from tallow, a hard fat usually extracted from fatty deposits of animals. 
Tallow consists chiefly of glyceryl esters of oleic, palmitic, and stearic acids.

The oleyl amine ethoxylates are best used in textile applications. 
With high affinity for surfaces these products are good for coating applications and as such are used for coating cloth, yarn etc. 
They are good emulsifiers and are used in many cleaning and detergent formulations due to their antistatic behaviour and dispersing abilities. 
In the similar way stearyl amine ethoxylates and coco amine ethoxylates are the two other widely used industrial surfactant products employed in different forms for various applications in diverse industries.

Depending on the degree of ethoxylation, the manufacturing conditions and the pH adjustment, ethoxylates based on primary amines display, to a more or less pronounced extent, the characteristics of cationic surfactans.

This leads to a special surface-active property. 
For example, the affinity to various different surfaces that tend to be anionics is particularly high, a property which can be utilised beneficially in the textile and leather processing industries, but also in metal treatment (antistatics, improved grip, hydrophobing, etc.). 

Fatty amine ethoxylates are non-ionic surface-active agents manufactured by addition of different moles of ethylene oxide to fatty amines producing a range of ethoxlated molecules.
Fatty amine ethoxylates, range from liquid, to pasty solids. 
This nature depends on the length of fatty alkyl chain and the apparent number of ethoxyl groups. 
These Non-ionic Surfactants contain both hydrophobic tail portion and hydrophilic polar head groups. 
Therefore, they tend to dissolve in both aqueous and oil phase reducing the surface tension of liquids. 
Using more hydrophilic groups like EO brings about better solubility in water since more hydrogen bonding exists. 
These Fatty amine ethoxylates do not dissociate in solution i.e. non-ionic in solution thus do not form charged particles with residual electrical charge. 
This means that these non-ionic Fatty amine ethoxylate Surfactants will work well in hard water and at low temperatures. 
Moreover, they exhibit more stability in acidic and alkali solution plus miscibility with other Surfactants. 
Further, since these Fatty amine ethoxylates are nonionic Surfactants they exhibit excellent foam properties, outstanding solvency and absolute chemical stability providing overall good detergency properties.

Raw Fatty amines like tallow amine, tallowdiamine, lauryl amine, cocoamine, stearyl amine and oleyl amine are routinely converted to fatty amine ethoxylates in Venus-Goa plants across India. 
Ethoxylated fatty amines belong to the category of non-ionic Surfactants therefore can be used as emulsifiers and in emulsifier blend formations. 
For example Fatty amine ethoxylates function as wetting agent and dye leveling agents in textile industries and industrial detergents, solubilizer in textile processing, anti-corrosion agents in oil & gas, and as adjuvant or emulsifiers in agrochemicals. 
Their broad applications also includes sanitizers, dispersants, stabilizers, and anti-foaming agents. 
Fatty amine ethoxylates are considered as a useful an intermediate for the synthesis of anionic Surfactants. 
They have a wide application. 
However, their cationic characteristics have extended their use of these compounds and have brought out novel and valuable means for handling many industrial problems. 
The corrosion inhibitory properties they display are very important in petroleum refinery processes. 
For instance, a continuous injection of minor amounts of polyoxyethylated amine into the refinery processes protects metal surfaces from reacting with water, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen sulfide. 
In addition, metallic and mineral surface may absorb the cationic surfactant.

The most common nonionic surfactants are those based on ethylene oxide, referred to as ethoxylated surfactants. 
Several classes can be distinguished: alcohol ethoxylates, alkyl phenol ethoxylates, fatty acid ethoxylates, sorbitan ester ethoxylates, fatty amine ethoxylates, and ethylene oxide–propylene oxide copolymers (sometimes referred to as polymer surfactants). 
Another important class of nonionics are the multihydroxy products such as glycol esters, glycerol (and polyglycerol) esters, glucosides (and polyglucosides), and sucrose esters. 
Amine oxides and sulfinyl surfactants represent nonionic with a small head group.