Safe and sustainable by design microbial and lignin-based biosurfactants sourced from sustainable feedstock for home, personal care and agrochemical application

Today only 4% of the surfactant market share consists out of compounds that are 100% based on biomass (fully bio-based surfactants or biosurfactants), while there is an urgent need for non-hazardous Safe and Sustainable By Design (SSbD) biosurfactants (BSs). The biosurfactant market is expected to grow at a CAGR of between 5.2 and 10.5% between 2022 and 2028.

However the diversity of the currently available safe and sustainable biosurfactants is not at all sufficient to meet the market needs: diversity is key.

The SURFs UP project aims to bridge this gap by demonstrating optimized and cost-efficient processes for 9 second generation (2G) SSbD biosurfactant products that will be formulated in prototypes in home- and personal care and agrochemical applications.

The 2G feedstocks will include wood processing waste (sugars and lignin) and regional food/industrial (processing) waste.

The 9 SURFs UP ingredients are: (1) 7 microbial biosurfactants, i.e. 2 drop-in sophorolipids, 2 new-to-market sophorolipid type biosurfactants, 1 new-to-market mannosylerythritol lipid and 2 new-to-market lipopeptides and (2) 2 new-to-market chemically produced BSs from lignin of wood processing waste.

These ingredients will be fully characterized (physicochemical properties) and evaluated according to the SSbD Framework criteria and (eco)toxicity testing.

The production of SSbD BSs will be scaled up (a.o. in the SURFs UP DEMO plant that will be built) and used to demonstrate prototype formulations in the aforementioned applications.

Particular attention will be given to cost-efficient and sustainable production/use of the SSbD SURFs UP biosurfactants, evaluated within full TEAs and LCAs.

Finally, SURFs UP will operationalize the EC SSbD Framework for the development of novel BSs and will work on all aspects considering social awareness and acceptance of these products via the organisation of consumer surveys, engaging stakeholders, policy makers and social media tools.