International Research Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry

In the present case, biodegradable starch interactions with various surfactants have been studied for the investigation of ability and cleansing activity of the starch-surfactant-water system. The surfactants investigated were sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) sodium octanoate (NaOct), cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and tween20. The degree of substitution (DS) of starch is 0.8 and the concentrations of starch were varied from 0.01 to 1% wt/v. The effect of mixing on the micellisation of the ternary surfactant solutions can be described to a good approximation by taking into account only the effects of the amount difference between the hydrocarbon chains length. Mixed micelle formation with starch depends on the chain-length in hydrocarbon in hydrocarbon difference in the same way as for starch-surfactant micelle. Aggregation of the mixed micelles of the surfactants and the polymer coils produced a gel-like complex phase. The water content of the gel phase in equilibrium in aqueous solution increased when the chain-length difference between the two surfactants increased. The more surface-active component is strongly enriched in the polymer complexes of gels and it showed maximum cleansing activity of respective detergent. The experimental results of viscosity, surface tension and other physical properties indicated that addition of starch in detergent as soap filler these properties have changed. The complexes were analyzed and characterized by FTIR, XRD and SEM and the complexes exhibited excellent emulsifying efficiency and surfactants performance properties with this biodegradable starch polymer.