Abstract: odium salt of Polyepoxy N-maleoyl-2-aminoethanesulfonic acid is synthesized from maleic anhydride and taurine via amidate, epoxidation and anion ringopening copolymerization reaction. The structure is characterized with nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), mass spectroscopy and elemental analysis. By an orthogonal testing method, the optimized technological conditions are as follows: 95 ℃ of the reaction temperature, 6 h of the reaction time and 4% of the mass fraction of Ca(OH)₂. The synthetic copolymer P(MA-co-taurine) has excellent but controllable detergent properties. The chelation and dispersion are 326.8 mg CaCO₃/g and 124.9 mg CaCO₃/g respectively. The biodegradability of the copolymers can be demonstrated by shaking table test and the properties have been compared with other detergent builders.

Key words: biodegradable; polymer non-phosphorus detergent builders; ring-opening copolymerization