Alternative Feedstocks for Surfactant Manufacture

Surfactants and are used in every facet of modern life including soaps and detergents, emulsion polymers for architectural coatings, and adjuvants for agricultural formulations.  The basic building blocks for surfactant manufacture include petrochemical and biobased raw materials.  The surfactant industry is continuously looking for new raw materials to reduce costs, decrease environmental impact and improve sustainability.

  Petrochemical feedstocks  include crude oil, natural gas and coal.  Petrochemical feedstocks are converted into olefins, paraffins and aromatic used to produce alkylbenzene sulfonates (LABS), nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE), alpha olefin sulfonates (AOS) alcohol ethoxylates (AE) and alky ether sulfates (AES).  Biobased feeds stock include vegetable oil, carbohydrates and proteins.  Biobased feedstocks are converted into fatty acids, fatty alcohol, sugars and amino acids used to make soap, alkyl sulfates (AS) and alky polyglycosides (APG).  Many surfactants use a combination of both petrochemical and biobased raw materials.  There is a push in the industry to use biobased  raw materials like bioethanol to make olefins,  fatty acids and alcohols to make paraffins and olefins and pyrolysis of wood to make aromatics, usually using a mass balance approach to reduce costs. 

Biosurfactant have been known for some time but are only now becoming of commercial interest.  Fermentation of fats and oils with carbohydrates to make glycolipids using microorganisms is approaching industrial scale.  Examples include sophorolipids, rhamnolipids and mannosylerythritols (MEL).  Biosurfactants are generally significantly higher priced and are not drop in replacements for more conventional surfactants requiring major reformulations.  

Recent trends are focused on using wastes materials as feedstocks for surfactant manufacture.  Fermentation of food wastes to make fatty acids is one example.  Insect feed food wastes are rich in lauric oils which can be converted into fatty alcohols using conventional oleoalcohol synthesis.   This paper will review the main feedstocks for surfactant production and offer insights to further development