ABSTRACT
V. Determination of Alkyl Polyglucosides in Formulated Products 320
VI. Enrichment of Alkyl Polyglucosides from Environmental Samples 322
VII. Determination of Residual Glucose and Fatty Alcohol 324 A. Determination of glucose 325 B. Determination of fatty alcohol 325
VIII. Conclusions 326
References 328
I. INTRODUCTION Before discussing analytical methods for alkyl polyglucosides, it is helpful to remember the complexity of sample composition. As already described in detail (see Chapter 2), alkyl polyglucosides consist of a very large number of different chemical compounds due to 1. The distributions of the alkyl chain lengths of the natural raw materials 2. The two possible stereochemical orientations at C-l of the glucose moi
ety: the a-and /3-anomeric forms 3. The two possible isomeric forms of the carbohydrate itself: pyranoside
(six-member ring) or furanoside (five-member ring) 4. The position of the interglycosidic linkage for diglucosides and higher
oligomers The manifold stereochemical possibilities lead to an “exploding” number
of isomers when going from alkyl monoglucosides to diglucosides, triglucosides, and so on. Even in an alkyl polyglucoside with a relatively low degree of glycosidation, 1.3, a species with as many as 12 carbohydrate units has been detected! Thus, the composition of an alkyl polyglucoside is surely much more complicated than the composition of other types of technical surfactants.
