28 MANUFACTURE


Why biomanufacturing is gaining momentum


Alexey Volkov – Enginzyme


The personal care industry sits at a crossroads. Consumers are demanding more sustainable, transparent, and traceable ingredient stories, while regulators tighten the boundaries on what can be called ‘green’. Brand owners, formulators, and ingredient manufacturers are being pushed to rethink how materials are made and not just what they are made of. For decades, efficiency was the dominant


metric. Processes built on classical chemical catalysis delivered volume, reliability, and purity at a price point that fuelled global growth in cosmetics and personal care. Yet the same processes that established the industry’s success — high-temperature reactions, volatile feedstocks, and solvent-intensive separations — are now under increased scrutiny for their environmental impact.


The transition to cleaner, more efficient


ingredient manufacturing is well underway on multiple fronts. Chemical routes are being optimized, and precision fermentation continues to evolve. Biocatalysis, meanwhile, is being established


as the pillar of industrial biotechnology, a bridge between chemistry and biology, with companies like Enginzyme helping to redefine what bio- manufacturing can mean for the personal care industry. Demand for innovation has never been higher.


Brands need differentiated textures, sensory profiles, and performance claims to stand out in saturated markets. Industry leaders are looking beyond


incremental formulation tweaks to fundamental manufacturing change. A 2024 Fact.MR survey found that more than three-quarters of personal- care stakeholders plan to increase investments in biomanufacturing and green-chemistry innovation, reflecting a structural shift rather than a passing trend. Traditional chemistry still provides scale and


fermentation enables complexity, but biocatalysis fills the gaps, combining precision, efficiency, and sustainability.


Chemical synthesis: a foundation under pressure Classical chemistry remains the workhorse of personal care ingredient production. It underpins the synthesis of surfactants, emollient esters, silicones, UV filters, rheology modifiers, and conditioning agents, virtually every functional


PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE January 2026


class in a formulation lab. At its heart lies a familiar repertoire of transformations, such as: ■ Sulfation and sulfonation, among the essential steps towards anionic surfactants. ■ Ethoxylation and propoxylation, used to tune hydrophilicity and foam behaviour across a vast range of non-ionics. ■ Esterification and transesterification, which form the basis of emollients and wax esters. ■ Quaternisation and amidation, generating cationic conditioning agents and mild amphoterics. The traditional chemical toolkit has had time


to evolve and deliver products that are safe, reproducible, and cost-effective at industrial scale. Catalysts and methods of optimisation and refinement of these processes lead to high yields and consistency. For bulk molecules, nothing yet competes with the throughput and robustness of chemical catalysis. Chemical routes benefit from mature


infrastructure. Plants are built for these reactions, supply chains are standardized, and decades of regulatory data exist. Raw materials such as fatty acids, alcohols, petrochemical intermediates are available globally. The unit operations are well understood, enabling tight process control and cost predictability. Moreover, chemistry is flexible. By adjusting chain length, degree of saturation, or head-group


substitution, chemists can fine tune performance attributes such as viscosity, mildness, or spreading. This combinatorial freedom has been essential to the diversity of modern cosmetic formulations. However, these strengths come at an


environmental and reputational cost. Many classical processes operate under harsh conditions — temperatures above 150°C, high pressures, and use corrosive or toxic compounds. Energy demand is significant, and atom economy is often poor, with side products requiring separation and disposal. Ethoxylation, for example, is efficient in


throughput but relies on ethylene oxide, a highly reactive gas with safety and toxicity concerns. The same reaction can generate 1,4-dioxane as an unwanted by-product, now under increasing regulatory pressure worldwide. Similarly, sulfation and sulfonation demand complex neutralization steps and produce salt-laden effluents that are difficult to treat. Even where emissions are well controlled,


public perception is shifting. ‘Petro-derived’, ‘sulfated’, or ‘quaternary’ have become warning signals in consumer communication, regardless of scientific nuance. This has motivated a wave of ‘sulfate-free’, ‘non-EO’, and ‘naturally derived’ product launches, all seeking to reconcile performance with perception.


www.personalcaremagazine.com


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