ABSTRACT
Zwitterionic Surfactants ....................................................................... 316 18.4 Fluorinated Surfactants and Their Environmental Impact ................................................. 318 Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... 318 References ...................................................................................................................................... 318
Fluorinated surfactants have unique properties that make them highly suitable for many industrial processes,1-3 use in consumer products,1-3 and biomedical2,4,5 and research applications such as novel material synthesis applications.6 Several unique characteristics of the uorine atom contribute to the properties of surfactants with a highly uorinated hydrophobic tail (or uorinated surfactants
302 Handbook of Detergents/Part F: Production
for short). These unique characteristics include the following: uorine is the most electronegative element; the uorine- uorine bond is weak, whereas the uorine-carbon bond is among the strongest known covalent bonds; the van der Waals radius of uorine is small; and uorine has three nonbonding electron pairs.2
