Background

Surfactants are amphipathic molecules with hydrophilic (attracted to water) and hydrophobic (repelled by water) moieties that partition preferentially at the interface between fluid phases such as oil/water or air/water interfaces. Such characteristics confer excellent detergency, emulsifying, foaming, and dispersing traits, making surfactants some of the most versatile process chemicals. However, synthetic surfactants are increasingly considered an environmental risk mainly because of their toxic nature and their difficulty in being degraded in the environment. Biosurfactants, which are biodegradable and generally considered environmentally friendly, have increasingly gathered a lot of interest as potential alternatives.