Sugar fatty acid esters (SFAEs) are amphiphilic compounds widely employed as active ingredients in several market sectors for the preparation of food, agricultural, cosmetic and pharmaceutical products thanks to their excellent surfactants properties. Compared to petrochemical-based surfactants, SFAEs are neither harmful to the environment nor skin irritants, food-grade, fully biodegradable and non-toxic. Moreover, they are easily digested as a mixture of sugars and fatty acids in the stomach and some of them showed antimicrobial, anticancer and insecticidal activity [1]. These compounds can be produced from renewable agricultural sources by using both chemical and enzymatic esterification. In the framework of project AnimalFatPlus we synthesized new surfactants starting from sidestreams of the cereal industry, namely maltose, and sidestream of the meat industry, namely fatty acids.
In particular we obtained monoesters in moderate yields and with long reaction time in the presence of lipases. Work is in progress on the use of sulfonic resins and mixed oxides following our previous work on the esterification of trimethylolpropane using solid Lewis acid materials [1]. The chance to obtain polyesterified sugars will allow us to tune the hydrophilic lipophilic balance (HLB) of the product and in turn its surfactant properties.
1) F. Zaccheria, M. Mariani, P. Bondioli, N. Ravasio, Appl. Catal., B. 181 (2016) 581