Rhamnolipids application

Nguyen TTL, Edelen A, Neighbors B, Sabatini DA. Biocompatible lecithin-based microemulsions with rhamnolipid and sophorolipid biosurfactants Formulation and potential applications. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. 2010 348(2) 498-504. 

F. Ochoa-Loza, Physico-chemical factors affecting rhamnolipid biosurfactant application for removal of metal contaminants from soil, Ph.D. dissertation. University of Arizona, Tucson, 1998. 

Transparency Market Research. Microbial biosurfactants market (Rhamnolipids, sophorolipids, mannosylerythri-tol lipids (MEL) and other) for household detergents, industrial institutional cleaners, personal care, oilfield chemicals, agricultural chemicals, food processing, textile and other applications. Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014. 2014—2020. 

Recently, four microbially derived biosurfactants—rhamnolipids, sophoro-lipids, spiculisporic acid and surfactin—are commercially available. Nevertheless, the use of biosurfactants is limited by the cost of production and insufficient experience in applications. However, since there is increasing awareness of water quality and environmental conservation, as well as expanding demand for natural products in cosmetics or in pharmaceutical products, it appears inevitable that high-quality microbially produced biosurfactants will replace the currently used chemical products in many applications outlined above. In addition, in the future chemically or bio-... 

Maier, R. M., Soberon-Chavez, G. Pseudomonas aeruginosa rhamnolipids biosynthesis and potential applications. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2000, 54, 625-633. 

Currently, there are some facilities that produce rhamnolipid surfactants e.g. Rham-nolipid Inc. in United States (http //www.rhamnolipid.com/index.html) produces rhamnolipids on a relatively large scale. Their main target market is in EOR applications. A similar US-based company. Biosurfactant EOR, Inc. (http //www.bioeor.com/), also produces a range of rhamnolipids for the oil industry. The main principle in these two applications is to reduce the interfacial tension of the oil-water interface, therefore reducing the capillary forces that tend to keep the oil trapped in the reservoir. The advantage of the rhamnolipids is that they can reduce that interfacial tension to ultralow values... 

Another company. Paradigm Biomedical (http //www.paradigmbiomedical.com/), uses rhamnolipids in the treatment of psoriasis, in wound-healing applications. The low toxicity, biocompatibility and biodegradability of rhamnolipids is also the reason that a cosme-ceutical company, Aurora Advanced Beauty Labs (http //www.aurorabeautylabs.com/), includes rhamnolipids in their cosmetic formulations. In the case of medical and cosmetic applications, both companies indicate that they use only highly purified forms of the biosurfactant, which suggests that biosurfactants produced from waste biomass are not suitable for these applications. 

Besides FOR the other largest application of biosurfactants is in remediation of oil spills and in the removal of oil sludges from storage tanks. Rhamnolipid-based products like BIOREM and SLUDGER are now available in the market. 

Rhamnolipids have been commercialized by Jeneil Biosurfactant Company, which put a lot of effort into achieving administrative approval of rhamnolipid use as pesticide adjuvants and for poultry hygiene. Aurora Advanced Beauty Labs Inc. has a substantial intellectual property (IP) portfolio in the domain of rhamnolipid use for pharmaceutical applications and announced that it was introducing various cosmetic products such as antiwrinkle creams, moisturisers, beauty treatment products and skin protection ointments. 

Gruber, T., Chmiel, H., Kappeli, O. et al. (1993) Integrated process forcontinuous rhamnolipid biosynthesis, in Biosurfactants, Production, Properties, Applications, Surfactant Science Series, vol. 48 (ed. N. Kosaric), Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 

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