ABSTRACT

From ancient times onward soaps have been used as surfactants in washing and personal hygiene. Starting in 1946 with the introduction of tetrapropylenebenzene sulfonate (TPS) as a synthetic anionic surfactant in the United States, these synthetic surfactants rapidly displaced soaps as the main ingredient in detergents owing to their excellent performance and their low cost. In contrast to soap, however, which is easily biodegraded, TPS was rather resistant to biodegrada­ tion. As a consequence, concentrations of TPS in the environment increased in parallel to increasing consumption of detergents. Finally, a point was reached at which, during the drought years 1959 and 1960, visible foams were formed at weirs on major rivers in Germany (as well as in different parts of the world), making the problem of rising surfactant concentrations evident to the general public [1].