Some chelate surfactants were synthesized which had one or two hydrophobic long chained N-alkyl groups and hydrophilic EDTA-metal chelate ions, and their properties were investigated.
Some EDTA, N-alkyl substitution products and EDTA, N, N'-bisalkyl substitution products (alkyl group; decyl, dodecyl, tetradecyl, hexadecyl and octadecyl) were treated with salts of some transitional metals as the chelating agents, and many pure chelates were obtained. Some of those chelate surfactants thus obtained showed good surface activities.