ABSTRACT
Polyoxyethylene esters of fatty acids were among the first nonionic surfactants commercialized, when Scholler and Wittwer invented oxyethylation, i.e., the reaction of ethylene oxide with a proton-active substrate, in 1930 [1]. The 124mono- and diesters of ethylene glycol and oligoethylene glycols had of course been known before, having been synthesized by esterification of the corresponding glycols with the acids or by analogous condensation reactions.*
