A process for preparing surfactant alcohols and surfactant alcohol ethers
by derivatization of olefins having about 10 to 20 carbon atoms or of
mixtures of such olefins and optional subsequent alkoxylation is
described. As features, the process involves
(a) subjecting a C.sub.4-olefin mixture with a 1-butene/2-butene ratio of
.gtoreq.1.2 to a metathesis,
(b) separating off olefins having 5 to 8 carbon atoms from the metathesis
mixture,
(c) subjecting the separated-off olefins individually or in a mixture to a
dimerization to give olefin mixtures having 10 to 16 carbon atoms,
(d) subjecting the resulting olefin mixture, optionally after a
fractionation, to derivatization to give a mixture of surfactant alcohols
and
(e) optionally alkoxylating the surfactant alcohols.
The olefin mixture obtained in the dimerization comprises a high content
of branched components and less than 10% by weight of compounds which
contain a vinylidene group.
Also described is the use of surfactant alcohols and surfactant alcohol
ethers to give surfactans by glycosidation or polyglycosidation,
sulfation or phosphation.
