Will biosurfactants replace conventional surfactants?

New surfactants are not necessarily better than established surfactants; new surfactants need to be better, cheaper or have a lower environmental impact to have an advantage over existing products. Attributes like aquatoxicity, mildness, sourcing from renewable carbon and emissions of greenhouse gases during production and use of surfactants had become more and more important. Biosurfactants (BS) which are not really new to the world but which have been so far only produced at low concentrations by microorganisms or plants have attained attention in academical research and interest of industry in the last 25 years resulting in the commercial availability of Sophorolipids and Rhamnolipids by several companies. BS are dedicated to applications in PersonalCare and HouseHold Care due to their consumer-recognizable mildness; BS can, however, not simply replace established components in formulations due to their different performance profile, which makes comparison to traditional surfactants rather complicated.