Extreme Synergistic mixing in Biosurfactant ionic surfactant mixtures

The biobased economy growing substantially and pressure to reduce reliance on palm and crude oil derived materials, demand that Home and Personal Care industries develops frameworks for deploying sustainably sourced alternative materials. Biosurfactants tend to be very similar to nonionic and mild anionic surfactants but with significantly higher molecular weights. Saponins are naturally occurring glycolipids with between one and 5 sugar groups as headgroups and are of growing interest as natural detergents. We wish to understand the origins of a peculiar competition between a saponin derived from tea and a conventional surfactant where at very low concentrations the tea material significantly reduces the adsorbed amount of SDS (a common ingredient in toothpaste). this is vital in understanding how to formulate these materials in a sustainable bioeconomy.