Non-ionic surfactants constitute a group of chemicals with enormous, yet under-appreciated, impact on our daily lives and our environment. These surfactants are key functionality-bearing constituents in products as diverse as household detergents, laundry powder, pharmaceutics, cosmetics, personal care products and agrochemicals. In applications that involve direct interaction or physical contact with living organisms, non-ionic surfactants are preferred over ionic ones, due their lower toxicity and irritancy. However, the most common non-ionic surfactants, which are based on polyethyleneglycol (PEG), are derived from ethyleneoxide, a hazardous chemical of petrochemical origin. The aim for this project is to give scientific proof of concept for a new sustainable surfactant that could replace and even outperform existing non-ionic petrochemical based surfactants. Our innovative technology is based on enzymatic methods for surfactant synthesis and uses renewable materials, such as cyclodextrins and starch, to produce alkylglycosides comprising oligomeric head-groups with up to fourteen hexose units. The aim with this project is to obtain detailed understanding of the structure-function relationships on the molecular level to be able to rationally design OMAGs and further develop of the manufacturing process. This will allow successful transfer of this novel sustainable technology platform to application. This framework project is funded by Formas and is a collaboration between Food Technology (Marie Wahlgren and Stefan Ulvenlund), Biotechnology (Patrick Adlercreutz) and Enza Biotech (Stefan Ulvenlund and Patrick Adlercreutz).

Contact person: Tommy Nylander, Physical Chemistry