Quaternary ammonium salts of diepoxides and diamines, their preparation and use

Claim 1

A process for the treatment of water, which comprises adding to the water to be treated an effective amount of an ammonium salt as an algicide, bactericide or fungicide, said ammonium salt consisting essentially of cationic units which contain diepoxide and diamine radicals and having the formula ##STR62## in which E is a divalent bridge member which has one of the formulae ##STR63## in which t is a number from 1 to 4, u is an integer from 1 to 8 and v is 1 or 2 and R 1 , R 2 , R 3 and R 4 are identical or different and are alkyl, cycloalkyl or alkenyl having not more than 8 carbon atoms, which radicals are unsubstituted or substituted by hydroxyl, alkoxy, alkylthio or cyano, or aryl or aralkyl, which are unsubstituted or substituted by hydroxyl, hydroxyalkyl, alkoxy, alkoxyalkyl, alkyl alkylthio, cyano or halogen, or (R 1 and R 2 ) and/or (R 3 and R 4 ) together with the nitrogen atom to which they are bonded form a piperidine ring, M 1 , M 2 and M 3 are each acyl having 2 to 5 carbon atoms or hydrogen, Y 1 and Y 2 are identical or different from one another and have the formula --C.sub.m H.sub.2m -- in which m is an integer from 1 to 12, the sum of the m's in Y 1 and Y 2 is not less than 3 and when m is 1 the bond to the bridge member D is not made via a nitrogen atom or oxygen atom, or Y 1 and Y 2 are phenylene, which is unsubstituted or substituted by halogen, hydroxyl, alkyl, halogenoalkyl, hydroxyalkyl or alkoxy, D is a divalent bridge member of one of the formula ##STR64## in which D 1 is a direct bond, alkylene, alkenylene, arylene, heteroarylene, diaminoalkylene, diaminoarylene or unsubtituted or halogen-substituted dioxyalkylene, polyoxyalkyleneoxy or dioxyarylene, D 2 is diaminoalkylene or unsubstituted or halogen-substituted dioxyalkylene, polyoxyalkyleneoxy or dithioalkylene, D 3 is arylene and D 4 is alkylene or arylene, T 1 , T 2 and T 3 are each hydrogen or methyl, X 1 , X 2 , X 3 and X 4 are each --COO--, --OOC--, --O-- or a direct bond and A 1 and A 2 are each a heterocyclic ring which has 5 or 6 ring members and 2 nitrogen atoms and can be substituted in alkyl, or alkylene which can be interrupted by hetero-atoms, or cycloalkylene, cycloalkenylene, arylene or aralkylene which have 1 or 2 rings and can be substituted by alkyl or halogen, the bridge members in ring form being bonded via a direct bond, via a hetero-atom or via an alkylene bridge, which can be interrupted by hetero-atoms.