Earth resources are limited and so is the ability for humanity to grow on Earth. The impact of detergent chemistry goes beyond green chemistry but the holistic impact on Earths resources is rarely understood. To guide future research towards a holistic detergent design, Urner lab leverages the planetary boundary framework to assess systematically the impact of detergent chemistry on the transgression of Earth’s resources. Our results show that the implementation of a climate-friendly detergent industry is making progress. Improvements are needed in aligning materialistic and societal aspects in creating technical solutions by means of sustainable chemistry, also from the perspective of academic family trees. Furthermore, we show that the development of detergents that serve the purposes of applications but do not harm the wider biosphere remains to be explored. We propose an important key parameter to be considered in future research is the membranolytic property, which describes the dissolution of cell membranes by detergent. Cell membranes are the first point of contact with detergents and related membrane damages are linked to cell stress, inflammation, allergy, antimicrobial resistance and maybe even cancer development. To support new directions in developing safe-to-use detergents, we expanded the detergentome by modular hybrid detergents to provide new possibilities in structure-activity studies. Methodological capabilities provided by our modular hybrid detergent chemistry unlock full flexibility in tuning molecular parameters that determine applications and membrane interactions, including charge, polarity, and molecular shape. Taken together, we present a new detergent class and demonstrate utility of the planetary boundary framework for guiding future research towards sustainability, regardless of the chemistry. Our results also imply that safe operating spaces that humanity needs for its survival may be secured by directing additional future efforts in detergent chemistry beyond sustainable chemistry, resource efficiency, and net zero emission targets.
