(286b) Synergistic Interactions Among Biosurfactants and Other Surfactants

Due to the increasing demand for environmental friendly reagents, greener surfactants are recently receiving the warranted attention. The unique surface activity and biodegradability make this group of surfactants leading candidates as the next generation reagents. One of the unique properties of greener surfactants is the synergistic interactions between each other as well as conventional surfactants. In this work, we selected several greener surfactants, sugar based alkyl glycosides and amino acid based acyl-glutamate for exploring their potential synergism in mixtures

under different solution conditions. It is noted that synergy under various conditions of temperature, pH and salinity depends very much upon the chemical structure of the components as well as mixing ratio and even the sequence of mixing. The results are analyzed to obtain relationship between packing of surfactant species at various interfaces, solubility and resultant synergism/antagonism.