Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States.
Biologically derived commodity chemicals are going to play a critical role in the transition away from a petroleum-based economy. Surfactants represent one of the largest classes of non-fuel petroleum products with an annual production of over 12 Mt.
Further, there is increasing interest in “green” cleaners for both domestic and industrial applications. Biologically derived alkyl polyglycosides represent one of the most promising technologies in this regard, meeting the US EPA Design for the Environment standards for low toxicity and innocuous biodegradation. We are interested in improving the performance of such sugar-based surfactants while retaining favorable environmental attributes. Our strategy is to prepare surfactants having a C-glycosidic instead of O-glycosidic linkage. Via an efficient synthetic strategy we have produced new families of bio-based surfactants with tunable hydrophilic-lipophilic balance.
Characterization of solubility, critical micelle concentration, micelle size, and emulsifying capability is currently underway. Medium term efforts will further include an assessment of the viability of algae as a potential feedstock for this new class of molecules.