Sodium myreth sulfate is a mixture of

organic compound In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. T ...

s with both detergent and surfactant properties. It is found in many personal care products such as

soap Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...

shampoo Shampoo () is a hair care product, typically in the form of a Viscosity, viscous liquid, that is used for cleaning hair. Less commonly, shampoo is available in solid bar format. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product ...

s, and

toothpaste Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from the teeth, ...

. It is an inexpensive and effective

foaming agent A foaming agent is a material such as a surfactant or a blowing agent that facilitates the formation of foam. A surfactant, when present in small amounts, reduces surface tension of a liquid (reduces the work needed to create the foam) or increase ...

. Typical of many detergents, sodium myreth sulfate consists of several closely related compounds. Sometimes the number of

ethylene glycol Ethylene glycol (IUPAC name: ethane-1,2-diol) is an organic compound (a vicinal diol) with the formula . It is mainly used for two purposes, as a raw material in the manufacture of polyester fibers and for antifreeze formulations. It is an odo ...

ether units (n) is specified in the name as myreth-n sulfate, for example myreth-2 sulfate.

Production

Sodium myreth sulfate is very similar to

sodium laureth sulfate Sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), an accepted contraction of sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES), also called sodium alkylethersulfate, is an anionic detergent and surfactant found in many personal care products (soaps, shampoos, toothpaste, etc.) an ...

; the only difference is two more carbons in the fatty alcohol portion of the

hydrophobic In chemistry, hydrophobicity is the physical property of a molecule that is seemingly repelled from a mass of water (known as a hydrophobe). In contrast, hydrophiles are attracted to water. Hydrophobic molecules tend to be nonpolar and, t ...

tail. It is manufactured by

ethoxylation Ethoxylation is a chemical reaction in which ethylene oxide adds to a substrate. It is the most widely practiced alkoxylation, which involves the addition of epoxides to substrates. In the usual application, alcohols and phenols are converted in ...

(hence the "eth" in "myreth") of myristyl alcohol. Subsequently, the terminal OH group is converted to the sulfate by treatment with chlorosulfuric acid.Eduard Smulders, Wolfgang von Rybinski, Eric Sung, Wilfried Rähse, Josef Steber, Frederike Wiebel, Anette Nordskog “Laundry Detergents” in ''Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry'' 2007, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. .

Safety

Like other ethoxylates, sodium myreth sulfate may become contaminated with

1,4-dioxane 1,4-Dioxane () is a heterocyclic organic compound, classified as an ether. It is a colorless liquid with a faint sweet odor similar to that of diethyl ether. The compound is often called simply dioxane because the other dioxane isomers ( 1 ...

during production, which is considered to be a Group 2B suspect carcinogen by the IARC.

References

External links

Household product database
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717095704/http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=chem&id=885 , date=2012-07-17 at NIH web site. Cosmetics chemicals Ethers Household chemicals Organic sodium salts Anionic surfactants Sulfate esters

Production

Safety

See also

References

External links