Abstract Switchable surfactants are environment-friendly compounds, which can be separated from the system or lose surface activity after completing their function during one stage of a process. In order to study switchable properties of a kind of CO 2 switchable surfactant with an imidazoline group, four 2-alkyl-1-hydroxyethylimidazolines were synthesized by condensation of N-(2-hydroxyethyl) ethanediamine with dodecanoic, ...