Synthesis of Eco-Friendly Polymeric Biosurfactants with Excellent Environmental Compatibility and Characterization of Their Interfacial Properties for Cosmetic and Household Products

Tightening environmental regulations and increasing awareness for the need to protect the ecosystem have effectively resulted in an increasing interest in biosurfactants as possible alternatives to chemical surfactants. They have advantages over their chemical counterparts in specificity, relative ease of preparation, mildness, and effectiveness even at extreme temperature or pH. Biosurfactants also have the merit of diversity, environment friendly nature such as low toxicity and excellent biodegradability, possibility of large-scale production, selectivity, performance under extreme conditions, and potential applications in environmental protection. Due to their unique functional properties, biosurfactants can be used as emulsifiers as well as demulsifiers, wetting agents, foaming agents, spreading agents, environmental cleanup of pollutants, functional food ingredients and detergents. In this study, 3 types of polymeric phospholipid biosurfactants were prepared using 3 different raw materials such as linoleic acid, rapeseed oil and coconut oil respectively and the structure of the resulting products was elucidated by FT-IR, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR spectroscopies. Biodegradability, acute oral toxicity (LD50), acute dermal irritation and acute eye irritation tests revealed that the newly synthesized polymeric biosurfactants possess excellent mildness and superior environmental compatibility as well as superior interfacial properties, indicating the potential applicability in cosmetic product formulations. The patch test has been performed with 0.1 mL of 0.5 wt% surfactant solution and the result has shown that the newly prepared polymeric biosurfactants indicated no allergic inflammation on a skin during 48 hrs. The prescription test in shampoo formulation prepared with the newly synthesized biosurfactants indicated excellent sensory feeling and foam ability compared with conventional hydrocarbon and silicon surfactants. In particular, LDP-PW(A) can be considered as a strong candidate for the potential applicability in cosmetic product formulations since the newly synthesized LDP-PW(A) polymeric biosurfactant is highly surface active, mild, nontoxic, non-irritating and readily biodegradable.<br/><br/>Acknowledgements<br/>This work was supported by Material Parts Technology Development Program (20011027, Development of fluorine based surfactant manufacturing technology for semiconductor and display process) and by Program (P133500002, Development of eco-friendly anionic surfactant that can be applied to household kitchens, personal cares, and cosmetics by using bio-natural raw materials for carbon neutralization), funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Korea.