Process for the preparation of non-ionic surfactant mixtures

摘要

Low-foam, non-ionic surfactant mixtures can be prepared by a) reacting 1 mol of fatty alcohol polyglycol ether of the formula (I) in which R<1> is a linear or branched, saturated or unsaturated fatty alcohol having 6 to 22 carbon atoms, m is 0 or numbers from 1 to 3 and n is numbers from 1 to 15, with 0.1 to 1.1 mol of a halide of the formula (II> R<2> Hal in which R<2> is an alkyl radical having 1 to 8 carbon atoms or a benzyl radical, in the presence of 0.9 to 1.1 mol of an alkaline catalyst, and subsequently b) unreacted fatty alcohol polyglycol ether is reacted with 0.05 to 2 mol of propylene oxide - per mole of polyglycol ether employed - in a manner known per se.