About Us

Surfactants and their market

Surfactants are performance molecules that intervene in nearly every aspect of human daily life and find applications in consumer and industrial products, in sectors as diverse as home- and personal care, cosmetics, textile, pharmaceuticals, food and feed, beverages, chemicals, detergents… Today only about 4% of the surfactant market share consists out of molecules which are 100% based on biomass (“bio-based surfactants” “biosurfactants”), the majority of surfactant ingredients used specially for home- and personal care and agrochemical products are currently produced using fossil and/or 1G biobased feedstocks, which is an issue in terms of sustainability. Even though biosurfactant market is expected to grow the most in the coming period, the diversity of the currently available safe and sustainable biosurfactants is not at all sufficient to meet the market need.

Our goals and objectives 

The SURFs UP project aims to demonstrate optimized and cost-efficient processes for 9 second generation (2G) SSbD biosurfactant products that will be formulated in prototypes in home- and personal care and agrochemical applications, 7 of which are microbial biosurfactants:

  • 2 drop-in sophorolipids,
  • 2 new-to-market sophorolipid type biosurfactants,
  • 1 new-to-market mannosylerythritol lipids and
  • 2 new-to-market lipopeptides and

Instead, the other 2 are chemically produced biosurfactants originated from lignin of wood processing waste.

Schema Surfs up

To achieve its goals, SURFs UP will focus on the following specific objectives:

  • Conduct sustainable EU feedstock mapping, select appropriate feedstocks, and optimize feedstock pretreatment for the SURFs UP value chains.
  • Demonstrate optimized, cost-efficient, and sustainable bioprocesses for biosurfactant production.
  • Formulate and demonstrate prototype products for applications in personal- and home care, and agrochemicals.
  • Develop realistic and robust financial models ready for a biorefinery concept, incorporating in-depth process simulation and modeling-based techno-economic assessments.
  • Design, building and commissioning of the SURFs UP DEMO plant, including validation of the production process at the DEMO scale.
  • Operationalize the European Commission's SSbD Framework for the development of novel biosurfactants.
  • Use the environmental and social sustainability performance of the value chain, with a focus on by-product valorization, to guide process development and business planning.

Sponsor finaziatori

The project is supported by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking and its members
Project 101157586

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CBE JU. Neither the European Union nor the CBE JU can be held responsible for them.

Surfs UP