Meaning of "Nonyl-phenol 10 mole"

Question

In my workplace we are purchasing "Nonylphenol 10 mole" and "Nonylphenol 30 mole" for use as non-ionic surfactants.

At first I assumed, because of the name, that the substance was simply nonylphenol. But further research shows that commercial non-ionic surfactants are actually ethoxylates of nonylphenol. Thus, I'm assuming that what we are buying is in fact ethoxylated nonylphenol, in two different degrees.

Further research is fruitless though. I simply cannot find any source explaining the meaning of "10 mole" and "30 mole" at the end of the name.

Can anyone tell me the actual real chemical formula of "Nonylphenol 10 (or 30) mole", or at least give me an explanation of the name's meaning?

Answer 1

Nonylphenols are a family of closely related organic compounds composed of phenol bearing a 9 carbon-tail (Wikipedia). Following is an example of nonylphenols:

However, "Nonylphenol $n$ mole" is a commercial name for non-ionic surfactants where $n$ stand for the amount of ethelene oxides (EO) in moles in one surfactant molecule. For example, if the non-ionic surfactant is $\ce{R-O-(CH2CH2-O)n-H}$ where $\ce{R}$ is hydrophobic tail of the surfactant, the commercial name "Nonylphenol 10 mole" means $\ce{R-O = 4-C9H17-C6H4-O}$ and $n = 10$ in the structure. An example for a linear chain non-ionic surfactant is pentaethylene glycol monododecyl ether:

where $\ce{R-O = C12H25-O}$ and $n = 5$ (available in Sigma-Aldrich).