Microemulsion‐Based Vegetable Oil Detergency Using an Extended Surfactant

This work examined the use of a single extended surfactant in the microemulsion‐based detergency of vegetable oils. The results showed that good canola oil detergency (>80%) was achieved at 25 °C using a single extended surfactant (C14,15–8PO–SO4Na) at concentrations as low as 125 ppm, i.e., significantly lower than the surfactant concentration range of 500–2,500 ppm reported in other microemulsion‐based detergency work. It was found that the maximum detergency (95%) was achieved in the type II microemulsion region. These results demonstrate that the microemulsion‐based extended surfactant formulation is a promising approach for vegetable oil detergency at low temperature.