Silanol-based surfactants: synthetic access and properties of an innovative class of environmentally benign detergents.

Herein, environmentally friendly surfactants based on new silanols as substitutes for the isoelectronic phosphonates were explored. Surface tensions of aqueous solutions are significantly reduced, particularly with those silanols that feature a high ratio of organic moiety to silanol. Besides their use as surfactants, their potential as coating agents for hydrophilic oxide surfaces was investigated for the example of glass substrates. In the solid-state sheet structures with silanol, double layers are present, in which the sheet spacing varies with the alkyl-chain length.