ABSTRACT
This chapter describes various techniques and procedures that are regularly used to characterize polyoxyalkylene copolymer surfactants. The approaches described are used to obtain information on the chemical composition of the complex mixtures comprising this class of surfactants. This includes the molecular structure characterization of the polymer chains as well as the identification and quantitation of the residual reactants, by-products, and additives present in surfactant mixtures. All these components combine to yield the overall bulk properties of the surfactants and a full understanding of their contribution to mixture composition is essential to understanding the behavior of the surfactants in use.
