How does the branching of the hydrocarbon chain of synthetic detergents affect their biodegradability?
Detergents having highly branched hydrocarbon chains cause pollution in rivers. The reason being that side chains stop bacteria from attacking and breaking the chains. Thus, the lesser the branching more is biodegradability i.e., detergents with long straight hydrocarbon chains are more easily degraded than those having branched hydrocarbon chains.
Since, unbranched (i.e., straight) chains are more prone to attack by bacteria, therefore, in most of the detergents used these days, the branching is kept to be minimum so that the detergents become easily biodegradable.
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