| Project Detail |
Developing novel bio-based green surfactants for home care and agriculture
Industrial formulations currently rely on fossil-based surfactants and polymers. However, the EU Green Deal advocates for transitioning to new chemistries based on sustainable and natural compounds, yet research in this area is still in its early stages. To address this gap, the EU-funded SurfToGreen project aims to develop a new surfactant platform to replace current benchmarks across various industrial applications. SurfToGreen will use biomass-derived building blocks to create novel bio-based surfactants, encompassing anionic, nonionic, cationic, and zwitterionic surfactant families, as well as biopolymers and oligomers sourced from renewable materials. The objective of the project is to validate these innovative products in sectors such as home and personal care, textiles, and agriculture.
Formulations in industrial applications primarily rely on fossil-based surfactants/polymers significantly contributing to environmental pollution (CO2 increase, microplastics) and are scarcely sustainable. The EU Green Deal demands for new chemistries based on sustainable and natural compounds. Effective bio-based surfactants are poorly integrated in industry and in their infancy in research. SurfToGreen will fill this gap with a completely new surfactants platform covering diverse industrial applications to replace current surfactant benchmarks. SurfToGreen gathers a unique partnership of major industrial actors and excellence research centers, with the advanced knowledge on soft matter and industrial processes fundamental to achieve this challenging goal. Biomass derived building blocks will be obtained from EU territorial value chains, including forests and agriculture waste/side streams to diversify biomass origin, and used to synthesize novel biobased surfactants. The new products will cover anionic, nonionic, cationic, zwitterionic surfactant families, and biopolymers-oligomers from renewable sources with no impact on the food chain. The platform will be validated in three industrial demonstrators among the most fast-growing crucial sectors, i.e. home/personal care, textile, and agriculture. The compounds’ surface properties will be assessed against detergency, interfacial, and rheological behaviour. Polymers/oligomers, hydrotropes and surfactants will be used for encapsulation to protect and control the delivery of actives (perfumes, and compounds for plant protection). Digital technologies and safe-and-sustainable by design methodologies will assess the functionality, safety, and sustainability of the biobased formulations within a circular value chain framework. Finally, extensive exploitation and communication will be carried out to promote the SurfToGreen advancements as a pilot to drive a paradigm shift in EU and global industry.
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