Surfactants are an essential cog in the wheel of modern society, with an annual production volume of about 40 million tons. The inherent ability of surfactants to homogenize immiscible compounds such as water and oil, make them essential in applications such as home-, laundry- and personal care, agrochemicals, paints, dyes and pharmaceuticals. Currently industrially applied surfactants have been optimized for high performance, unfortunately neglecting the concepts of sustainability. Most compounds are still derived from fossil resources, frequently by polluting pathways. The classes of bio-based surfactants on the other hand either suffer from limited performance, narrow application scope or transport of raw materials from distant locations, also contributing to carbon-dioxide emissions.
The ERC Proof-of-Concept project PURE aimed to address the development of novel, sustainable pathways to produce high performance, 100% surfactants which can be derived from locally available renewable raw material waste streams (waste cooking oil, forestry and agro-waste of lignin side-products of papermaking).
Within the project, the feasibility, scalability, and commercial potential of the new sustainable pathways was examined, and the performance of the new bio-based structures, with the common denominator being a lignin-based linker, was evaluated. In total, a library of 40 surfactants was generated and characterized, including non-ionic (amine-oxides), zwitterionic (amino-acid based) and anionic compounds (sulfonates).
In total, two PCT patents and two Austrian PRIO patents were filed. A market study was performed, an initial business case, and commercialization strategy was developed together with ttopstart B.V. via subcontracting. Regarding traction, 12 interviews were conducted and 10 letters of intent of interested parties could be collected. Furthermore, multiple follow-up grants were secured, with the most prestigious being an EIC Transition Grant for €2.5M (PureSurf, #101058142). Other grants include the AWS Prototypefunding as well as the UNICORN Spin-off Lab Fellowship 2021.
