what two types of detergents

Soaps are the cleansing agents which are sodium or potassium salts of long chain fatty acids (such as palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid etc). These are bio-degradable.

Synthetic detergents are the cleansing agents which are ammonium salts or sodium salts of long chain sulphonic acids. These are non-biodegradable. 

Synthetic detergents are further of two types: Biodegradable and non-biodegradable.
 

Biodegradable detergents are the detergents that can be easily decomposed by biological means like bacterial or microbial action. They are mostly straight chain hydrocarbons so that they can easily be decomposed by microbial action.

Examples:- Linear alkyl benzene sulfonates, linear olefinsulfonates, sodium lauryl sulphates

Detergents that cannot be degraded by bacteria are called non-biodegradable detergents. Such detergents have highly-branched hydrocarbon chains. For example: sodium -4- (1, 3, 5, 7- tetra methyl octyl) benzene sulphonate

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Akanksha Jain