UK clean chemistry company Viridi is developing a new class of anionic surfactants that use captured carbon dioxide (CO2) with the aim of reducing the environmental impact of personal care ingredients without compromising formulation performance.

Its Vireya platform contains up to 33% CO2 and has been reported to offer a product carbon footprint up to 70% lower than conventional surfactants.

Testing has also shown good cleansing and foaming performance compared with sodium laureth sulfate (SLES).

Using CO2 as a feedstock is not straightforward. The molecule is highly stable and does not readily react with the other building blocks required to produce useful materials.

Viridi has developed a solid catalyst that lowers the energy barrier needed for the reaction, allowing captured CO2 to be incorporated into the molecular structure of a surfactant.

The catalyst operates at lower temperatures than existing catalysts used in these processes, can be reused multiple times and contains no harmful ingredients.

It is also designed to work within existing surfactant production assets, helping ensure that CO2-derived alternatives can be manufactured without requiring an entirely new production route or becoming more costly to produce than conventional surfactants.

For formulators, however, changing the carbon source is only valuable if the finished ingredient still performs as required.

Viridi’s development work therefore assesses properties including surface-tension reduction, foam generation, foam nature and stability, cleansing performance and mildness before the surfactants are evaluated in complete formulations.

Vireya’s potential irritancy has been assessed using the Zein test, an established in vitro screening method commonly used to evaluate surfactant mildness.

The test measures interaction with zein, a plant-based protein used as an analogue for skin keratin. In testing, Vireya showed up to a tenfold improvement compared with SLES.

The opportunities presented by Viridi’s CO2 technology are also being evaluated beyond Viridi’s own laboratories.

The company is working with consumer brand owners on application testing and formulation optimisation, while German speciality chemicals manufacturer Zschimmer & Schwarz is collaborating with Viridi under a joint development agreement focused on scaling and commercialising CO2-based surfactants.

The agreement followed extensive trials that identified multiple potential applications and use cases for the technology.

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Source: Personal Care Magazine (https://www.personalcaremagazine.com/)

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