Locus Performance Ingredients
Biosurfactants: The Future of Sustainable, High-Performance Ingredients for Product Formulations

By Greg Smith, Vice President, Americas | TLT CMF Plus November 2022

Introduction
The demand for bio-based alternatives to petrochemical surfactants continues to grow. But historically, available bio-based surfactants were generally less effective and more expensive than legacy surfactants. To meet rising regulatory and social pressures, Locus Performance Ingredients (Locus PI) has developed fermentation-produced, REACH-registered biosurfactants that open new industry formulation possibilities. The high-activity, multifunctional biosurfactants harness the unique properties of sophorolipids, a type of biosurfactant in the glycolipid class.

Locus PI’s sophorolipids offer formulators high-performing biosurfactants that are USDA certified as 100% biobased, readily biodegradable, non-GMO, palm oil free and have no Proposition 65 concerns. The biosurfactants are produced using Locus PI’s novel fermentation process, which results in commercially viable ingredients with a near-zero carbon footprint. This patented fermentation technology has broken the code on yield and cost.

Formulators can utilize the unique and complex properties of sophorolipids to achieve competitive “cost-in-use” for a variety of industrial applications, such as metal working fluids (MWF). Sophorolipids are a blend of nonionic and anionic molecules and are intrinsically multifunctional. Therefore, several properties like wetting, emulsification, dispersion and cleaning can be delivered by formulating with sophorolipids.

What are Biosurfactants?
Biosurfactants are a category of bio-based surfactants produced naturally by living microorganisms through fermentation. While they have similar mechanisms of action to many traditional surfactants, biosurfactants have distinct properties that provide unmatched multifunctionality, and do so while also providing health, safety and environmental benefits that typical chemical surfactants cannot match.

Costly production methods with limited volume capacities restricted the use of biosurfactants as commercial ingredients, until Locus PI developed an innovative fermentation process that solved these challenges. Using scalable, modular production, Locus PI can optimize the creation of pure biosurfactant solutions at significantly lower costs.

Fermentation-Produced Biosurfactants
Locus PI uses patented bioinformatics and fermentation technology to deliver biosurfactants that provide unmatched sustainability and performance in lubricants, metal working fluids and industrial cleaning formulations. The core technology has 39 patent applications, 1 issued and 19 trade secrets; it spans bioinformatics, process technology, microbes, applications, and derivative molecules. Locus PI’s competitive advantage stems from creating unique, biobased, high-performance and sustainable ingredients at industry-low costs. (Figure 1)


Figure 1. Patented bioinformatics and fermentation technology.

Biosurfactants Solve Formulation Pain Points for Metalworking Fluids
Locus PI’s biosurfactants provide solutions to six critical industry pain points:
1. Reduce Toxicity – 100% free of 1,4-dioxane and other harmful Proposition 65 trace chemicals.
2. Increase Sustainability – 100% free of palm oil, non-GMO, are produced from renewable raw agricultural materials and provide raw material diversification opportunities.
3. Improve Transportability – Mild and non-hazardous for packaging and transport.
4. Maximize Biodegradability – Readily Biodegradable as categorized by the OECD 301 test.
5. Minimize Carbon Footprint – Locus PI’s sophorolipids are fermented in a carbon-neutral process and provide a near-zero carbon footprint.
6. Achieve Adaptability – Locus PI’s novel fermentation platform allows capacity expansion at low capital cost –anywhere in the world.

Amphi™ Line of Biosurfactants for Industrial Applications
Locus PI has developed a line of sophorolipids tailored specifically to industrial applications. Known as Amphi™, the biosurfactants offer distinct competitive advantages over legacy chemical-based ingredients in both performance and sustainability. What sets Amphi biosurfactants apart are their low critical micelle concentration (CMC) and improved surface tension reduction. This allows for increased water movement. These two factors result in smaller dosage for a lower in-formula cost and superior performance. Amphi’s multifunctionality can often replace the action of more than a single counterpart ingredient in formulations, leading to fewer ingredients needed and cleaner product safety data sheets (SDS).

The Amphi line of biosurfactants minimizes or eliminates issues related to trace chemicals, toxicity and deforestation stemming from reliance on palm oil. The incorporation of Amphi ingredients, in combination with other clean ingredients, provides a finished product with greater ESG appeal by offering a biodegradable, sustainable profile and a reduced carbon footprint. Locus PI recently launched two new biosurfactant ingredients: Amphi CL and Amphi CH. Amphi CL is a low HLB, low to no foaming, hydrophobic sophorolipid that acts as an effective emulsifier when used in product formulations. Amphi CH is a high HLB, medium foaming, hydrophilic sophorolipid with excellent detergency. These two new ingredients join TSCA-approved Amphi M and are TSCA-pending. The entire Amphi line is REACH-registered. (Figure 2)


Figure 2. Spec table for Amphi line of biosurfactants.

Amphi CH Biosurfactants Improve Emulsion Stability
In a recent joint studyⁱ performed by Ingevity and Locus PI, metalworking fluid oil-in-water emulsions were formulated with a very low dosage of Amphi CH sophorolipids. The study looked at replacing the traditional anionic and nonionic surfactants both in full and in part.

The metalworking fluids formulated with Amphi CH sophorolipids improved the quality and stability of the emulsion. The metalworking fluids formulated with the Amphi CH sophorolipids and traditional anionic and nonionic surfactants demonstrated comparable lubricity and corrosion performance.

In addition to improved performance, the Amphi CH sophorolipids effectively replaced ethoxylated surfactants, which contain 1,4-dioxane impurity, a suspected carcinogen. This study demonstrated the multifunctional merits of sophorolipid biosurfactants in metalworking fluid applications, along with their associated health, safety and environmental benefits.

The results of the study showed that Amphi CH reduced the average particle size and produced a unimodal distribution of the semi-synthetic formulation, which indicated improved stability and longer shelf life. The study concluded that due to the multifunctionality of Amphi CH, reductions in traditional surfactants could lead to overall cost savings.

Conclusion
Locus PI advancements in the production of sophorolipids by fermentation enable the lubricant and metal working fluid industry to leverage the untapped potential and superior performance of biosurfactants. These clean, sustainable solutions are better for the environment and better for the consumer. Locus PI’s patented production technology enables rapid and cost-effective creation and scaling of biosurfactant solutions that support the sustainability goals of formulators and their customers.

About Locus Performance Ingredients®
Locus Performance Ingredients (Locus PI) is a green tech company dedicated to developing environmentally friendly biosurfactant solutions that replace legacy surfactants and eliminate regulatory challenges in CPG and industrial markets. Using advanced fermentation technology, the team creates performance-driven, sustainable ingredients that are 100% biobased and GMO-free, with no palm oil, Proposition 65 chemicals such as 1,4-dioxane, EO, formaldehyde or other trace chemicals. Each biosurfactant is tailored for use in a multitude of applications, with lower usage rates, better performance and a near-zero carbon footprint. Locus PI gets its core scientific capabilities from its parent company, Locus Fermentation Solutions (Locus FS), an Ohio-based, globally recognized biosurfactant company. For more information, visit LocusPI.com.


Locus PI formulation laboratory scientists.

^I Shana McCabe ⁽¹⁾, Laurent Kieken ⁽²⁾ and Lee Speight ⁽²⁾, “Novel sophorolipid biosurfactants as sustainable and efficient alternatives to traditional surfactants in MWF formulations” presentation, STLE Annual Meeting, May 2022.
(1) Ingevity; (2) Locus Performance Ingredients