Microbial biosurfactants, can help to meet the demand for ecological friendly and natural surfactants, especially in areas like household products, food applications, and cosmetics. Today, the industrial scale commercialization of biosurfactants is only just beginning with three pioneering compounds produced by microorganisms that are simple and low cost in their biotechnological production. These are sophorose lipids, mannosylerythritol lipids and rhamnolipids. These structures are currently particularly interesting since many biosurfactants show a high efficiency at concurrently good biological degradability. They can also be produced from renewable raw materials.
In this presentation, the current progress and future perspectives for the biomanufacturing of interesting microbial biosurfactants will be presented.