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Science has greatly contributed to the advancement of technology and to the innovation of production processes and their applications. Cleaning products have become indispensable in today’s world, as personal and environmental hygiene is important to all societies worldwide. Such products are used in the home, in most work environments and in the industrial sectors. Most of the detergents on the market are synthesised from petrochemical products. However, the interest in reducing the use of products harmful to human health and the environment has led to the search for detergents formulated with natural, biodegradable surfactant components of biological (plant or microbiological) origin or chemically synthesised from natural raw materials usually referred to as green surfactants. This review addresses the different types, properties, and uses of surfactants, with a focus on green surfactants, and describes the current scenario as well as the projections for the future market economy related to the production of the different types of green surfactants marketed in the world.How to cite: Farias CBB, Almeida FCG, Silva IA, et al. Production of green surfactants: Market prospects. Electron J Biotechnol 2021;51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2021.02.002 more...

In the industrial environment, it is common to use toxic and petroleum-derived oils, which are difficult to remove from various surfaces on which they are adhered. For the cleaning of machines, equipment and other surfaces impregnated with these oils, the industries use products of high cost and that, some of them present high toxicity, presenting risk to the health of the workers and to the environment. In this context, the advancement of sustainable technologies has increasingly driven the search for natural and biodegradable surfactant compounds, which reduce impacts on the environment and guarantee the health of workers. This led to the development of natural detergents / degreasers, formulated from renewable / sustainable sources. Therefore, this work aimed to evaluate the stability of a biodetergent produced from non-toxic components such as organic vegetable solvent, natural surfactant and stabilizing gum for large-scale production for application in the removal of type 1 fuel oil (OCB1). The effect of the variation in the stirring time (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 minutes) of the mixture was evaluated in relation to the volume increase (4, 5 and 6 liters) at 80 ºC using a rotor stirring equipment approximately 3,200 rpm. After mixing, the stability in relation to the storage time (48 and 96 hours) and the removal efficiency of OCB1 fuel oil on a smooth surface were evaluated. The results obtained demonstrated the interaction between the processing conditions, which directly influenced the final characteristics of the product after 96 hours of storage. All tests showed excellent results, with emphasis on the stirring time of 7 minutes, reaching almost 100% stability. The evaluation of the biodetergent for the removal efficiency of the OCB1 fuel oil showed satisfactory results, with removal of 100% of the oil impregnated on the smooth surface. Thus, it can be concluded that the formulation of the biodetergent showed reliability in increasing the scale of production, since it did not show variation when subjected to the investigation of physical factors in the production process. more...

This work describes the application of the biosurfactant from Candida bombicola URM 3718 as a meal additive like cupcake. The biosurfactant was produced in a culture medium containing 5% sugar cane molasses, 5% residual soybean oil and 3% corn steep liquor. The surface and interfacial tension of the biosurfactant were 30.790 ± 0.04 mN/m and 0.730 ± 0.05 mN/m, respectively. The yield in isolated biosurfactant was 25 ± 1.02 g/L and the CMC was 0.5 g/L. The emulsions of the isolated biosurfactant with vegetable oils showed satisfactory results. The microphotographs of the emulsions showed that increasing the concentration of biosurfactant decreased the oil droplets, increasing the stability of the emulsions. The biosurfactant was incorporated into the cupcake dessert formulation, replacing 50%, 75% and 100% of the vegetable fat in the standard formulation. Thermal analysis showed that the biosurfactant is stable for cooking cupcakes (180 °C). The biosurfactant proved to be promising for application in foods low in antioxidants and did not show cytotoxic potential in the tested cell lines. Cupcakes with biosurfactant incorporated in their dough did not show significant differences in physical and physical–chemical properties after baking when compared to the standard formulation. In this way, the biosurfactant has potential for application in the food industry as an emulsifier for flour dessert. more...

A common practice adopted by several Brazilian companies is to collect residual frying oil and to use it for detergent or soap production. This practice, however, is challenging for the industry, since the use of waste oil generates a heterogenous effluent with high turbidity and containing numerous suspended particles. In this context, the flotation process has proven to be quite efficient for the treatment of this type of effluent, with the capability of removing a larger amount of oil in comparison to other methods. The development and use of microbiological surfactants may enhance even more the efficiency of this technology. These biological molecules also have several advantages over synthetic surfactants such as higher biodegradability, less toxicity, better environmental compatibility and can be synthesized from renewable feedstocks. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the separation efficiency of oil fraction from the effluent from the soap and detergent industry (ASA INDUSTRIA E COMÉRCIO LTDA, Recife – PE, Brazil) using a bench-scale DAF prototype with the addition of two different forms of a biosurfactant as alternative collectors. Biosurfactants was obtained from the bacterium Pseudomonas cepacia CCT 6659 and applied to the DAF system in both crude and isolated forms. The results demonstrated that the DAF-biosurfactant system increased oil separation efficiency of the DAF process from 69.49% (using only microbubbles) to 89.83 and 86.44% using the isolated and crude biosurfactant, respectively. In addition, there was also a turbidity reduction of the effluent, based on Brazilian Resolution CONAMA 430/2011. Therefore, the biosurfactant from P. cepacia in its isolated form was selected as the more promising product for the treatment of effluent from soap and detergent industry plant. more...