Strategies toward commercial scale of biosurfactant production as potential substitute for it's chemically counterparts

Abstract

In the past few decades natural emulsifiers/biosurfactants have been intensively studied for their ability as potential substitute for synthetic surfactant usage. Biosurfactants are valuable microbial amphipathic compounds with effective surface active and biological properties which are applicable to several industries and process materials. Several biosurfactants properties are low toxicity, higher biodegradability and ecological acceptability, also synthesised from wide range of raw materials. At present, biosurfactant are unable to compete with the synthetic surfactant due to their high production cost, specific functionality and production capacity to meet the need of intended applications. A considerable number of researches and studies have been published in order to eliminate the economical bottleneck of biosurfactants production process. This review describes alternatives strategies toward commercialisation of biosurfactants on a large scale that might be able to replace their chemical counter parts.