Patent ID: 7074749

Claim:
Detergents and cleaners comprising an effective proportion of one or more surfactants of the formula I: wherein: a is one of the numbers 11, 12, or 13, whereby the i-C a H 2a+1 radical is derived from an oxo alcohol obtained by hydroformylation of a decene, dodecene or a mixture of these olefins which, in turn, has been prepared by dimerizing n-pent-2-ene, hex-3-ene or mixtures of these compounds; R 1 and R 2 are different and are each hydrogen or alkyl radicals of the formula C H 2n+1 ; R 3 is a hydrogen, or a sulfato or phosphato radical; n is a number from 1 to 16, x is a number from 0 to 200, and y is a number from 0 to 200; wherein the surfactants of the formula I are prepared by: a) subjecting but-1-ene and but-2-ene to metathesis in the presence of molybdenum, tungsten or rhenium compounds as catalysts, b) separating off pent-2-ene and hex-3-ene 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 12 carbon atoms, d) subjecting the resulting olefin mixture, optionally after fractionation, to hydroformylation by reaction with carbon monoxide and hydrogen in the presence of a cobalt- or rhodium-containing catalyst to give a mixture of oxo alcohols, e) optionally alkoxylating the resulting oxo alcohols, and f) where appropriate, converting the oxo alcohols or oxo alcoholalkoxylates obtained in preparation step d) or e) into the acidic sulfuric or phosphoric esters; and further comprising auxiliaries and additives for detergents and cleaners, and optionally additional surfactants, wherein at the branching sites of the main chain predominantly groups having (yâˆ’4) and (yâˆ’5) carbon atoms are bonded, where y is the number of carbon atoms in the monomer used for the dimerization, and the value (yâˆ’5)=0 means that no side chains are present, and the properties of monosubstitution products (single branching) in the olefin mixture are in total in the range from 40 to 75% by weight, and the proportions of double-branched components are in the range from 5 to 25% by weight.