**3. Industrial challenge on bio-based surfactant**

This section covers the market performance, demand drivers, and growth prospects of biosurfactants. The market trend on bio-based and biosurfactants is discussed for the different geographic regions and in terms of changing market trends for biosurfactants in various application areas. Analysis of the industrial challenges of biosurfactants, which include the growth-restraining factors and future opportunities, is provided.

#### **3.1 The economy and market trend of bio-based surfactant**

The worldwide surfactant industry, estimated to be worth \$39 billion in 2019, is expected to expand at a rate of 2.6% per year over the following five years, reaching \$46 billion in 2024. Surfactants are produced in total of 17 million metric tons per year [78]. In the EU, of the 3 million metric tons of surfactants produced in 2019, roughly 50% were bio-based [79]. A market study by Market Research Future [80] indicated that the global biosurfactants' market value is around USD 2.1 billion in 2020 and predicted it to reach USD 2.8 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of over 5% from 2021 to 2026. The attractive performance of biosurfactants advances their high potential to substitute synthetic-based surfactants for drop-in applications and with unique properties that can overcome entry barriers for the emerging industrial areas. Major types of biosurfactants, such as sophorolipids, glycolipids, lipopeptides, polymeric biosurfactants, phospholipids and fatty acids, generally form the product demand application. Among biosurfactants, sophorolipids provide the largest global market demand with detergents and industrial cleaning applications. The leading demand drivers for biosurfactants comprise a growing consumer preference, increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, and rising awareness toward eco-friendly alternatives. By being environmentally compatible and with low toxicity, many studies have considered biosurfactants as the next generation of industrial surfactants [81–83]. In terms of end-user applications, biosurfactants are finding usage in household detergents, industrial and institutional cleaners, cosmetics, and personal care within the major markets in Europe and North America [80]. Recently, they have been gaining acceptance in the newer application areas such as in oil and gas as well as in agricultural industries.

Furthermore, the increasing consumer awareness of the benefits of biosurfactants and their wide range of application sectors form market drivers that increase their future growth potential. Higher growth of biosurfactants is seen in Asia-Pacific (APAC), especially in Southeast Asian countries that have slightly different demand factors that involve the increasing purchasing power of mass consumers, growing concern on environmental issues, and the generation of harmful chemical by-products. In terms of APAC market segmentation, the major sales revenue for biosurfactants resides within the home care and personal care applications, as rising urbanization becomes the dominant factor for surfactant growth. More importantly, a key growth enabler is in the innovative research on biosurfactants, especially when it can generate multifunctional and diversified products using renewable feedstock. This technological progress contributes to the desirable properties of biosurfactants to meet the changing consumer lifestyles in developing economies and consequently their increasing preference for usage in the end-user product formulation. As an example, within the home care detergent industry, the usage of biosurfactants as environmentally friendly products provides sustainable alternatives that are gaining a large market share [81, 84, 85].

The highest adoption of bio-based and biosurfactants is in Europe and North America, which dominate bio-based surfactant market share in terms of revenue *Perspective Chapter: Overview of Bio-Based Surfactant – Recent Development, Industrial… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100542*

and volume. Increasingly stringent regulatory requirements enable a wider acceptance of biosurfactants in the place of synthetic surfactants. For example, the imposed government regulations, such as CEN/TC-276, define the standards for surface-active agents and detergents to enhance the EU bio-based economy, detergent regulation (EC) No 648 that require surfactants used in detergents to be biodegradable under aerobic conditions as per OECD 301 test series. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic results in a sharp increase in the bio-based surfactant product demand for household detergents, personal care, and industrial cleaners due to the rising trend for sanitation.

#### **3.2 The industrial challenges of bio-based surfactant**

Bio-based surfactants are synthesized *via* a chemical reaction, which is usually carried out under harsh conditions. The use of hazardous solvents and toxic acid or base catalysts sometimes creates undesired waste or by-products that are detrimental to the environment. Enzymes have the potential to play a significant role in the production of numerous bio-based surfactants, although they are not currently used on a large basis. Enzymes provide several advantages over chemical processing, notably in terms of improving process sustainability. The main drawbacks of enzymes are their relatively higher price compared to chemical catalysts as well as their slower reaction speeds. However, since energy costs are expected to rise, the need of sustainability (lower operating energy, less waste, and safer operating condition) is crucial. Despite the growing demand for bio-based surfactants, several challenges exist that restrain their further market growth and wider adoption. The main challenge is in the higher pricing of bio-based and biosurfactants as the biggest hurdle in meeting the requirement of priced sensitive Asian customers. Higher complexity and low-efficiency microbial fermentation process in biosurfactant manufacturing contribute to the high production cost and expensive capital cost investment. For example, the average price of sophorolipids is USD 34 per kilogram as compared to sodium dodecyl sulfate and amino acid surfactants that are priced at USD 1–4 per kilogram [86]. Nevertheless, a lower operating cost of USD 2530/ton for sophorolipids' production is attainable through technological improvement such as integrated separation, which places sophorolipid surfactants at similar prices to other specialty surfactants [87]. Increased sustainability of biosurfactant alone without significantly higher performance is not well accepted, as the usual consumers will not be willing to pay a "green" premium for bio-based products. Therefore, lower cost improvement in biosurfactant manufacturing is fundamentally important to attain an economically sustainable process and assure future market continuity [85].

A second challenge is the dependency of biosurfactant demand on the volatility and economic downturn of downstream end-user industries. Industries that are applicable for biosurfactant applications, such as oil and gas, enhanced oil recovery, food industry, construction, textiles, paints, pharmaceutical, and detergents, are known to be susceptible to general macroeconomic performance. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic further leads to disruption in the end-user industrial demand and sustainability concern on the raw material supply. The sustainability of raw materials is a major concern as these contribute up to 50% of the glycolipid production cost and 10–30% of the overall cost for other biosurfactant products. Purification accounts for 60% of the production cost, but this can be minimized for the case of biosurfactant application in crude forms, such as in an industrial environment [88]. However, for high-purity applications, improvement in downstream processing methods is needed to attain a competitive cost of production. Opportunity exists in developing a new technology solution that utilizes a low-cost

raw material such as industrial wastes for biosurfactant production. However, this needs to consider the overall production impact factors that include the availability, stability, and variability of each component [88]. The economic viability criteria for biosurfactant production, therefore, include microorganism performance, bioreactor design, target market, purification process, product properties, production condition, fermentation cycle time, and production yield [89].

Additionally, several operation and control factors provide important handles to minimize biosurfactant production costs. Batch cycle optimization on the fermentation and purification process can reduce the idle time between batches and minimize chemical usage for equipment cleaning and energy use during sterilization. Productivity is the most important factor in the manufacturing economics of biosurfactant production at commercial scales [8]. Optimum batch-sequencing campaign minimizes startup and shutdown frequency to lower the production downtime that improves productivity. Lastly, biosurfactant product development will need to fulfill time-consuming and expensive legislative requirements, which restrain market growth [90]. These add a high cost of compliance to the product development cost that is incurred by biosurfactant manufacturers. Other market entry requirements include the biosurfactant products that are tested for long shelf life and the ability to maintain stable properties in the industrial environment [91].

#### **4. Future outlook and prospect**

The development of bio-based surfactants from renewable feedstocks is an attractive alternative to fossil-based surfactants with a significantly growing market attributed to their performance, biodegradability, biocompatibility, and nontoxicity [22, 33]. Additionally, advances in renewable technology, increased environmental concern, consumer awareness, and stringent regulatory requirements provide a continued push toward the demand of bio-based surfactants. Potential areas for use are growing fast, and valuable outcomes depend on whether the bio-based surfactants can be customized for specific applications along with if they can be produced at a price that will make them attractive alternatives to the fossil-based surfactants. The simultaneous design of bio-based surfactants for functional, economic, and environmental benefits will be taxing, but it will ensure the replacement of conventional fossil-based surfactants provided they can offer comparable or superior performance and a unique value proposition.

Presently, fossil-based surfactants are less expensive than bio-based surfactants [4, 92, 93]. However, this trend will likely change in the future, thereby increasing the prospects of bio-based surfactants. Feedstocks and how the bio-based surfactants are produced are the two key factors governing final product costs [4, 36, 94, 95]. To use renewable feedstock in the industry, they should be cost-effective, available in large quantities, and can effectively be converted to value-added surfactants [95]. Renewable feedstocks used as starting materials to produce surfactants usually face severe economic competition from their fossil-based counterparts. Surfactants comprised of hydrophilic head group and hydrophobic tail group, which are linked by a chemical bond generating an amphiphilic molecule that can be used directly or further modified. Surfactant design requires careful selection of the hydrophile and hydrophobe pair so that they can be easily synthesized with minimum purification and provide the desired properties for the intended application [4, 16, 92, 96]. Triglycerides, fatty acid methyl esters, fatty alcohols, fatty acids, and fatty amines are common examples of renewable hydrophobes used to produce bio-based surfactants. Sustainable hydrophilic headgroups can be designed using several molecules such as glycerol, carbohydrate feedstocks such as sucrose, glucose, organic acids, and amino

#### *Perspective Chapter: Overview of Bio-Based Surfactant – Recent Development, Industrial… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100542*

acids [4, 36, 94, 95]. Additionally, the use of renewable feedstock for surfactant manufacturing also helps reduce CO2 emissions because once the bio-based surfactants degrade, they only release back the quantitative amount of the carbon used by the plant to produce the surfactants [36]. Other than the starting material mentioned above, the use of alternative substrates, such as agro-based industrial wastes or other suitable simple waste substrate, is gaining a lot of research interest and can lead to significant cost reduction [97].

Researchers are continually improving the cost-effectiveness of production methods as well as enhancing the current technologies with green manufacturing principles to convert renewable feedstocks into valuable and new biobased surfactants. Some of the key focus areas include developing biobased surfactants from cheaper feedstocks, higher performance catalysts, green solvents, optimized reaction processes, and effective downstream purification could entice the industry players and end-use customers to make the switch from fossil-based surfactants to biobased surfactants. Catalyst design is also crucial to ensure high selectivity of the processes to limit or eliminate the formation of by-products and to help push the reaction forward towards completion faster [98–100]. Other than that, researchers are looking into equipment miniaturization such as continuous reactors to help reduce the raw material consumption and effluent production. Process intensification is another aspect that could help to reduce the investment costs [99]. Research focusing on alternative or green solvents dedicated to the conversion of renewable feedstock to value-added products has led to several publications. Among those being researched include bio-based ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, bio-based solvents, CO2-switchable solvents and supercritical fluids [101–103].

In terms of market penetration of bio-based surfactants, customers tend to choose cost-effective surfactants. Despite much progress in technical knowledge, the large-scale production of bio-based surfactants using the methods described above is still limited. The commercial production of bio-based surfactants still faces many challenges that must be addressed for them to be economically viable. One major obstacle is the homogeneity and consistency of the feedstock, which can lead to inconsistency in the final bio-based surfactants. Variation in the surfactant properties and performance could lead to unsatisfactory properties. Thorough testing on the use of bio-based surfactants in place of fossil-based ones will also be needed to provide enough and convincing data on the merits of bio-based surfactants. It is hoped that these efforts will lead to broader use of bio-based surfactants in the future, offering enormous benefits such as excellent physicochemical properties, biodegradability, lower risk to human health, and minimum harm to the environment.

## **5. Conclusions**

Surfactant manufacturers have introduced numerous new eco-friendly surfactant-based products to the market in the past few years. Increased consumer awareness, along with a responsibility for sustainable development, has resulted in the creation of several novel surfactant types based on renewable building blocks. These surfactants have improved biodegradation characteristics and low toxicity, making them a preferred alternative for innovative formulations in the industrial and consumer markets. However, these "drop-in" surfactant molecules, which aim to directly replace their petrochemical-based equivalents, face a huge challenge since prices must be as competitive as their fossil counterparts. Moreover, while several personal care and consumer product businesses have shown interest in 100% bio-based surfactants, only a few green premium products have been accepted into

the market. More assessments and surveys need to be done to gauge consumer willingness to pay premium prices for other than commodity products. With increasing innovative formulations to meet consumer, legislative, and sustainability demands, it is obvious that the global demand for both petroleum- and bio-based surfactants will continue to grow, while manufacturers are challenged to balance cost-effective formulations with efficient performance.
