ABSTRACT
Polysoaps are known as a type of surfactant having multihydrophobic groups and multihydrophilic groups. A great number of types of polysoaps have been synthesized, and many of them are excellent dispersants or ftocculants, although they give much higher surface tension than conventional surfactants [18, 19]. It indicates that the orientations of hydrophobic groups of polysoaps are limited due to blocking and steric hindrance caused by the main polymer chains. It is necessary to control the balance of hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups in order to enhance the interfacial orientations of surfactants having multihydrophobic groups and multihydrophilic groups. Telomers (or oligomers) are known as a type of polymer with degree of polymerization (Pn) of 5 to 20. They are obtained by polymerizing vinyl monomers in solvents with large chain transfer constants such as alkanethiol or alkyl alcohol [20,21]. Telomer-type surfactants have the properties of
both polymer-type surfactants and those of the conventional surfactants. In addition, it is expected that telomers enhance the interfacial orientation due to the increase of the functional groups' freedom. In general, telomer-type surfactants have one hydrophobic group and several hydrophilic groups. It is very interesting to study surface-active properties of telomer-type surfactants having several hydrophobic groups and several hydrophilic groups. Such telomer-type surfactants are obtained by introducing several alkyl chains to functional groups or by polymerizing the monomer with a hydrophobic group. Figure 1 shows the schematic representation of the background in this study.
