Decyl glucoside has the advantages of common nonionic and anionic surfactants: high surface activity, high viscosity, rich in bubbles, fine and stable; combined with other surfactants with obvious synergistic effect; strong dispersing ability for calcium soap. It can be used in hard water; it has very low irritation to the epidermis, mucous membrane and living cells; it is easily biodegradable in the natural environment and has little environmental pollution. APG is formed by the condensation of starch or its hydrolyzed sugars and fatty alcohols. The source of raw materials is very widely , and it has attracted more and more attention in recent years.
There are trace amounts of natural active substances in plants-alkyl oligoglycosides. The artificial synthesis of alkyl glucoside began in 1893. Emil Fischer of German first synthesized ethyl glucoside with ethanol and glucose under the catalysis of hydrochloric acid. It was until the late 1980s that APG achieved industrialization. In 1978, the French company Seppic built the world’s first industrial device.Chinese practical research on APG began in the mid-1980s, and some patents have also been applied for, but there has been little progress in industrial production. Tianjin Interface Research Institute has developed a method to directly synthesize relatively pure APG with excess sugar (target polymerization degree sugar) and fatty alcohol. The APG concentration in the product reaches 85% to 90%, but the problem of industrialization still needs to be solved.