Sugar-based surfactants for consumer products and technical applications

Sugar-based surfactants, such as sorbitan esters, sucrose esters, alkyl pol yglycosides, and fatty acid glucamides gain increasing attention due to adv antages with regard to performance, health of consumers, and environmental compatibility compared to some standard products. Sorbitan esters are well established products, which are mainly used as leather and textile auxiliar ies or as emulsifiers for food at a volume of approx. 20,000 t/a. Sucrose e sters are relatively hydrophobic products. The actual market size is estima ted to be < 4,000 t/a - the main application being emulsifiers for food and cosmetics. Their use is still limited. Alkyl polyglycosides and fatty acid glucamides represent a perfect amphiphilic structure with excellent surfac e activity as well as solubility due to highly selective syntheses. For alk yl polyglycosides industrial processes have been developed in the past coup le of years and a total capacity of ca. 80,000 t/a has been established. Th ey are mainly used for cosmetic, manual dishwashing, and detergent applicat ions. Fatty acid glucamides to date are exclusively used by one company in liquid and powdered detergents. The estimated production capacity is approx . 40,000 t/a. Comparable in their performance profile as co-surfactants, bo th products differ in their raw material base: whereas in the case of the f atty acid glucamides methylamine is incorporated in the product, alkyl poly glycosides are completely based on renewable resources. This, combined with very good performance and mildness, could be one reason why alkyl polyglyc osides are the most successful sugar-based surfactants nowadays. Research t o develop derivatives on this basis is still ongoing.