FUNCTIONAL INGREDIENTS
has established that 1,4-dioxane is likely to be carcinogenic to humans’.7 Furthermore, 1,4-dioxane contamination
levels from specific raw materials in finished products may drift over time. The drift can come with a rate of change that is temperature and pH dependent, such that even if you assay a raw material for 1,4-dioxane, the level could drift over the shelf life of your finished product, driving uncertainty throughout the product’s lifecycle. Raw material suppliers have worked
to address this challenge with various manufacturing controls, but suppliers have limited ability to ensure the level of 1,4-dioxane presence in the final finished good by the time it reaches the consumer. Despite the debate on 1,4-dioxane, governments and regulatory bodies are driving discussions and/or restrictions on present levels in New York,8 Germany,10
California,9 Australia,and other regions.
What are the experts saying? What is the answer to the 1,4-dioxane challenge? According to Kathleen Stanton, assistant vice-president of technical & international affairs at the American Cleaning Institute, and Douglas G. Hayes, institute professor of biosystems engineering and soil science at the University of Tennessee, one solution is to shift formulations to biosurfactants - specifically glycolipids - explaining they ‘possess excellent surface activity… highly biocompatible and biodegradable’.11
Ruby Bio’s glycolipid approach Biosurfactants can address the issues of 1,4-dioxane, but not all biosurfactants can remove the yoke our surfactant society has to oil, specifically palm oil. Charlie Silver and Pavan Kambam, co-founders of Ruby Bio, saw this as a landmark opportunity to bring positive change to personal care, home care and other industries. These challenges warranted the
development of a new class of biosurfactants produced via a nature-based fermentation process using abundant feedstock, such as sugar or sugar-waste, with no use of oil. Ruby Bio is pioneering a novel platform for biosurfactants that are also tunable. Tunability enables the production of a wide
range of surfactant variants and derivatives that closely resemble the core structure of legacy surfactants, with functionality that delivers equivalent or better performance. This new class of biosurfactants offers brands an opportunity to implement strategies for replacing petrochemical and other oil-based alternatives without compromising efficacy. To make this opportunity a reality, Charlie
and Pavan needed to identify a glycolipid- generating set of microorganisms with a high- performance profile. Pavan, having worked in industrial and food biotechnology leveraging precision fermentation, knew the parameters to make the biggest impact and pave the way for top performance. The remarkable natural yeast used in Ruby’s
platform is native to various regions across the globe but survives in hostile climates due to the high-performance glycolipid the yeast
www.personalcaremagazine.com
27
Figure 2: Palm oil producing countries2
Figure 3: Rapeseed oil producing countries3
produces. This yeast uses internal metabolic pathways to convert simple sugars into the hydrophilic headgroup and a broad range of lipophilic tail groups, generating surfactant molecules up and down the HLB scale. In nature, the yeast only has access to sugar
as a feedstock, so the yeast naturally creates the molecules it needs to function using only sugar. The molecules constructed by the yeast vary by chain length, delivering different surfactant properties associated with the HLB values shown in Figure 1. The yeast generates these molecules
naturally to serve environmental functions of cleaning, emulsification, and even defence from pathogens. In harnessing nature’s own solutions to emulsification and cleaning challenges, we discover new biodegradable, environmentally friendly and gentle alternatives to historically oil-based synthetic ingredients.
Bio-fermented glycolipid from Ruby Bio; RubyGL-EM1™ Consider the emulsification properties of the glycolipid generated by the yeast at an HLB of 8- 9. This hydrophilic-lipophilic balance demonstrates strong oil-in-water emulsification as a primary emulsifier, or as a co-emulsifier in water-in-oil systems. Unlike other glycolipids, the molecular
structure is linear, and the material develops stable emulsions by forming small, uniform droplets dispersed in the continuous phase (Figure 6). These small uniform droplets enhance emulsion stability. The yeast evolved the glycolipid to naturally withstand severe shifts in temperature, which provides good thermostability as an ingredient. Critical micelle concentration (CMC) is an
important characteristic of a surfactant. The CMC specifies the limiting concentration for
July 2024 PERSONAL CARE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
