Synthesis of novel oil-soluble fluorinated surfactants via Wittig-Horner reaction

In this paper, the synthesis and characterization of novel oil-soluble fluorinated surfactants were reported. Both Wittig and Wittig-Horner reaction were used for constructing the perfluorinated branch-chain structure, and the latter provided a better method through a three-step synthesis route which was easy worked up and low cost. The surface tension of novel products in toluene, n-hexane and nitromethane with concentrations of 0.1 mol/L, 0.05 mol/L, 0.025 mol/L, 0.0125 mol/L, 0.00625 mol/L and 0 mol/L were examined. The surface tension research of these surfactants showed that they can reduce the surface tension of organic reagents dramatically. For example, compound 1e can reduce the surface tension of nitromethane from 36.6 mN/m to 24.2 mN/m in the concentration of 0.1 mol/L, and the surface tension of toluene was reduced from 28.0 mN/m to 22.7 mN/m when the concentration of compound 1a was 0.1 mol/L.