Sustainable surfactants based on vegetable oil

Projektteam: Unten von links nach rechts: Prof. Dr. Viktoriia Wagner, Carolin Ganas und Frerik Jumpertz. Oben von links nach rechts: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schörken, Prof. Dr. Birgit Glüsen und Edda John (Image: Thilo Schmülgen/TH Köln)

“The vast majority of surfactants used today are produced petrochemically, meaning they are derived from crude oil. In our projects, we are working on using vegetable oils as a starting material,” says Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schörken, who is leading the two projects. This contributes to the transformation to a CO2-neutral society and ensures that fewer environmentally harmful chemicals are released into the environment.

Surfactants are omnipresent: in shampoos and cosmetics, for example, these molecules ensure that impurities are dissolved and no static charges are built up. “Bio-based surfactants have the potential to significantly improve the sustainability of cosmetic and pharmaceutical products, but have so far only been found in niche applications,” says Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schörken. This is mainly due to the fact that they have different property profiles compared to petroleum-based products. It is therefore difficult to replace individual components in established product formulations. “There is therefore a need for new, tailor-made bio-based surfactants as well as an in-depth understanding of the interactions in formulations to develop improved sustainable products,” adds Prof. Dr. Birgit Glüsen.

The synthesis of bio-based surfactants often results in substance mixtures. From an economic point of view, the costly purification of these mixtures should be avoided wherever possible. “A detailed analysis of the composition and properties of these complex products is therefore essential for establishing reliable structure-property relationships,” explains Prof. Dr. Viktoriia Wagner. These findings should allow a faster and more targeted replacement of petroleum-based compounds with bio-based compounds and thus pave the way for efficient product developments and adaptations.

The “CombiOne” research project aims to develop surfactants whose components are connected via innovative linkers. “Here, too, we are working entirely with renewable raw materials: Each surfactant consists of a water-repellent part and a water-loving part, for which we use natural amino acids or sugars. This is coupled via linkers, for example based on citric acid, which can connect the two parts,” says Schörken.

In addition to fatty acids from plant oils, the research team also relies on terpenes for the water-repellent part, which have only rarely been used for this purpose to date. These are essential oils obtained from lavender, pine or juniper, for example. The aim is to create a new class of surfactant. “For each of the three components of our surfactant, we have a selection of potential substances at our disposal and therefore a large number of possible combinations. We want to produce and characterize various of these combinations so that by the end of the project we have a catalog of new surfactants with promising properties,” says Schörken. Among other things, we are investigating how well the new substances clean, foam or emulsify, how they reduce the surface tension of water and whether they have an antibacterial effect.

The BioTense project is a research collaboration between Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schörken, Prof. Dr. Birgit Glüsen and Prof. Dr. Viktoriia Wagner. Funding is provided by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia via the FF HAW-Kooperation program (funding code 005-2302-026).

CombiOne is funded over three years by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the “Renewable Resources” funding program (funding reference 2221NR005X) with the participation of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schörken and Prof. Dr. Birgit Glüsen together with the industrial partners BASF Personal Care & Nutrition GmbH and Henkel AG & Co. KGaA.