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AOCS Surfactants and Detergents Division
Newsletter December 2007

News from the Chair
George Smith

There has been lot of change in the S&D Division over the past year. Mike Showell and Mark Nace have resigned from the S&D Board. There was a special election at the last S&D Division luncheon in Québec City and the new board is as follows:

Chair
George Smith
George_A_Smith@Huntsman.com

Vice Chair
Warren Schmidt
warren.schmidt@shell.com

Secretary Treasurer
John Billman
john.billman@us.henkel.com

Technical Program Chair
Steve Bolken
Steve.Bolkan@churchdwight.com

Members at Large

Terri Germain
t.germain@mcintyregroup.com

Edgar Acosta
acosta@chem-eng.utoronto.ca

Mike Robbins
michael.robbins@clorox.com

The Board would like to thank Mike and Mark for all their hard work and wish them well in their new assignments. I urge you to contact one of the new Board members if you have any questions or ideas on how we can better serve the S&D division.

Over the past year, the S&D division team has accomplished a number of things including:

1. Contributing $5000 to the AOCS Campaign for Technology;
2. Offering a CSPA Short Course at the 2007 AOCS Annual meeting on Intermediate Detergent Formulations;
3. Sponsoring the World Detergent Congress in Montreux;
4. Organizing the 2007 AOCS World Congress in Québec City with the Japan Oil Chemists' Society (JOCS); and
5. Organizing a session at the 2007 AOCS World Congress with the Biotechnology Division on Bio-Based Surfactants

We are also busy with other projects including:

1. Working on an on-line training module on surfactant science and technology. The course is geared to people new to the industry who need an intro course on surfactant science.
2. Updating the "Who's Who" (a historical view of the mergers and acquisitions that have occurred within the S&D industry) for the 100-year anniversary of AOCS in 2009.
3. Making electronic copies of talks given at the AOCS Annual Meeting available on CD.
4. Organizing a session at the CSPA New Horizons conference in 2008.
5. Organizing a Hot Topics session with IOP for next year's AOCS meeting on New Uses of Glycerin.
6. Organizing the 2008 SODEOPEC conference to be held in Orlando, Florida.
7. Organizing a short course on Analytical Instrumentation for the 2008 Annual Meeting.

There have been many changes in the surfactants and detergents industry over the last five years. Escalating raw material prices and commoditization of the industry have squeezed margins for both surfactant producers and detergent manufacturers. At the same time, increasing concern with product safety and sustainability of raw materials has increased the pressure on our industry. I am convinced that innovation is the key to our industry's future success.

AOCS plays an important role in our industry and is one of the few organizations where industry and academia come together to tackle problems. I urge everyone in the S&D Division to help recruit new members for our division.

New Horizons Conference

The Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA, www.cspa.org) has preliminary plans to hold the next New Horizons conference from October 19-22, 2008. Several US locations were considered, and Denver has been selected. This newsletter will post an announcement when additional information is available. The most recent New Horizons meeting was at Lake George, NY, in September, 2004.

S&D Meeting Calendar

2007

December 7, International Fresenius ECOTOX Conference "Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecotoxicology and Risk Management," Cologne, Germany (www.akademie-fresenius.de/ecotox)

December 9-13, Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA, www.cspa.org) Annual Meeting, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

2008

January 29 - February 2, SDA Annual Meeting & Industry Convention, Boca Raton, FL (www.cleaning101.com)

April 2-3, CED Annual Meeting for Detergents and Cosmetics, Barcelona, Spain

April 13-16, SODEOPEC - Soap, Detergent, Oleochemicals & Personal Care Products, Orlando, FL

May 18-21, 99th AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo, Seattle, WA

June 11-13, Household & Auto Care 2008, São Paulo/SP, Brazil

June 22-25, CESIO 7th World Surfactants Congress, Paris, France (www.cesio2008.com)

October 13-15, 2nd Regional Soaps, Detergents and Cosmetics Conference, Oil Technologists Association of India, Panjim, North Goa, India

October 19-22, New Horizons, Denver, CO

Junior Faculty Travel Grant

This program was established to enable junior level faculty to attend the AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo in order to participate in the S&D Division sessions. The grant would provide part of the necessary funds to attend the AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo and hopefully encourage the recipients along with their students to become active in the Division and the Society. Please contact Prof. Edgar Acosta (acosta@chem-eng.utoronto.ca) for further information. Details of the application process can be found at www.aocs.org/member/division/surfact/travel_grant.cfm. The deadline for applications is February 2, 2008.

Completed applications should be sent to Prof. Edgar Acosta, email: acosta@chem-eng.utoronto.ca or fax: +1-416-978-8605, Attn. Edgar Acosta.

Hosts for the Mixer

The Surfactants and Detergents Division organizes a mixer each Annual Meeting. The hosted mixer is a wonderful opportunity to make or renew personal contact with fellow members across industry and academia. The S&D Division is seeking hosts for next year's mixer in Seattle. Contact the S&D Board to pursue this opportunity.

Rosen and Travel Awards

The Surfactants and Detergents Division recognizes excellence by means of a variety of awards and grants. The Rosen Memorial Award as one such award, as it recognizes the advancement or novel application of the principles of surfactant chemistry. Nominations for this award are being accepted through December 1. (www.aocs.org/member/awards)

The Surfactants and Detergents Division supports future excellence in surfactant science by its Student and Faculty travel grants for the AOCS Annual Meeting. Applications for the faculty travel grants to next year's meeting in Seattle are being accepted through February 1. (www.aocs.org/member/awards/division/surfact)

98th AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo
George A. Smith

This year's AOCS Annual Meeting was held in beautiful Québec City, Canada. A joint World Congress with the Japan Oil Chemists' Society (JOCS), the meeting hosted more than 1,700 participants from all over the world.

Scheibel honored during S&D luncheon

Procter & Gamble's Jeffrey Scheibel, right, received the Samuel Rosen Memorial Award from Rosen's son, Milton Rosen, during the Surfactants and Detergents Division luncheon. Milton Rosen sponsors the award to recognize his father, who worked as an industrial chemist on the formulation of printing inks for more than 40 years. Scheibel made a presentation during the luncheon, titled "The Impact of Feedstocks on Future Innovation in Surfactant Technology for the Detergent Market." The S&D Division also honored Sasol North America's Michael Cox with its Distinguished Service Award during the luncheon; Cox, however, was unable to attend. Cox is an AOCS past president and also spearheaded the formation of the AOCS Journal of Surfactants and Detergents.

The AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo is a global business and scientific forum concerned with production, analyses and utilization of fats, oils, surfactants, and related materials. Held every year in a different city in North America, the annual AOCS meeting offers the members from the S&D Division an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest technical and business developments in the area of surfactants and detergents as well as networking opportunities with colleagues throughout the industry.

This year's S&D program was divided into 10 sessions with over 90 technical presentations and posters. Several of the sessions, including foam control, rheology of formulated products, bio-based surfactants, and controlled delivery, were organized based on member input at the previous year's roundtable meeting. The meeting also featured several Hot Topic symposia including Bio-Based Alternatives to Chemical Feedstocks, where the discussion centered around the use of algae as a potential new source of lipids and proteins. The use of vegetable oil to make biodiesel is beginning to have a serious effect on edible oil prices. Algae offers an exciting new feedstock for surfactant raw materials and may help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

S&D Division Student Travel Awards

Sunisa Watcharasing, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, left, and Thu Nguyen, University of Oklahoma, right, received the S&D Division's Student Travel Awards, and are seen here during the S&D Division Luncheon with then Division Chairperson Mike Showell of Procter & Gamble.

Other sessions were devoted to recent advances in microemulsion technology. Chaired by Marsha Hardin from Reckitt Benckiser, the session featured students and faculty from the Institute of Applied Surfactant Research (IASR) at the University of Oklahoma. For the past several years, ISAR has focused on the use of extended chain surfactants to obtain ultra low interfacial tension and enhanced solubilization efficiency in microemulsion systems. Extended chain surfactants represent a new surfactant architecture whereby a group of intermediate polarity is inserted between the head group and the hydrocarbon tail. Potential applications include enhanced oil recovery, enhanced cleaning and detergency, and elimination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in vegetable oil extraction.

In the General Surfactants session chaired by Raymond Cen of Huntsman and Masaki Tsumadori from Kao, there were two notable presentations on narrow range ethoxylation (NREs). While this technology has been around for several years, new catalyst systems have been developed with improved reaction kinetics and lower by-products. Melanie Sharp from Sasol described recent work to develop a new catalyst with a much reduced induction period. Upali Weerasooriya from Harcros also presented work on narrow range technology and showed that ether sulfates made from NREs have improved performance in detergent applications. Given the environmental and regulatory pressures on nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), NRE technology may offer economical replacements for NPEs without the need for registering new molecules.

Linh Do of the University of Oklahoma, seen here with S&D Division Chairperson Mike Showell of Procter & Gamble, received an AOCS Honored Student Award and the Frank C. Naughton Award.

This session also saw interesting presentations from Japan. Takehiko Miyahara from Lion Corporation presented work on adsorption behavior of polyester modified silicone polymers onto fabric. Silicone polymers have a number of useful properties including fabric softening, anti-wrinkling, easier ironing, and quicker drying. Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) was used to measure the ability of cationic silicone polymers to adsorb on different types of fabric. Results show stronger adsorption on cotton than polyester. This behavior was attributed to surface charge density although surface area may also play a role.

There was also a very interesting paper by Nobuyoshi Yamaguchi from Kao Corporation on development of bleach activators for liquid detergents. It was found that anionic bleach stabilizers like alkanoyloxybenzene sulfonates (AOBS) can be stabilized in aqueous solution by solubilization in nonionic micelles. Addition of cationic surfactants further increases stability by forming anionic-cationic complexes. These observations lead to the development of alkanoyloxyethyl trialkylquats. This novel cationic bleach activator when used in combination with AOBS shows excellent bleaching and sufficient stability to allow for use in liquid detergents.

A General Surfactants session was chaired by Raymond Cen of Huntsman, seen here, and Masaki Tsumadori from Kao.

In the Foam Control session chaired by Butch Dery from Akzo Nobel, Russ Elms from Dow Corning gave an excellent presentation of the theory of foam control and talked about the real life challenges of foam control in laundry applications. Other talks discussed the use of gemini acetylenic diols and silicones in foam control in detergent formulations, the foam properties of sodium cocoyl methyl isethionates in personal care products, and new instruments for characterizing foam profiles in the laboratory.

The controlled delivery session chaired by Edgar Acosta from the University of Toronto and John Billman from The Dial Corporation was especially interesting. Professor Eric Kaler from the University of Delaware presented work on polyelectrolyte gel particles for encapsulation and release of aromatic oils. Using a combination of anionic and cationic surfactants along with a cellulose polymer, it is possible to produce polyelectrolyte gel particles. The morphology of the particles could be controlled by stoichiometry of the starting materials. The release of aromatic oils was measured in different solvent systems and found to depend on the diffusivity and solubility of the oil in the aqueous gel matrix.

Marsha Hardin from Reckitt Benckiser chaired a Monday morning S&D session titled Recent Advances in Microemulsion Technology.

This session also saw interesting work presented by Professor Nissim Garti from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who presented work on novel nanosized mesophases with enhanced solubilization and bioavailability of nutraceuticals.

This year also hosted the ever-popular session on industrial applications of surfactants, organized by Milton Rosen from Brooklyn College and T.C. Jao from Afton Chemicals. Topics presented included wetting of hydrophobic polymer surfaces, delivery of hydrophobic disinfectants via surfactant-polymer complexes, foaming mechanisms of fatty acid and rosin soaps in concrete and recovery and purification of proteins using 3-phase microemulsion systems.

Next year's AOCS Annual Meeting is scheduled for May 18-21, in Seattle, Washington. Several sessions are planned based on member input from this year's roundtable meeting. Topics include bio-based surfactants, new trends in fabric care, hard surface cleaning and surface modification and industrial applications of surfactants.

Journal of Surfactants and Detergents (10:4) Contents

CHANGES AT JSD
This issue marks JSD's final issue with a news section before it becomes a peer-reviewed only journal.

INDUSTRY NEWS
News this quarter includes information on increased efforts in the US, Canada, and Mexico to ensure the safe manufacture and use of industrial chemicals; highlights from an ACS meeting presentation by a cosmetic ingredients chemist; and research from the University of Warwick that involves clay armor.

MEETINGS
A report from George Smith on the AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo in Québec and updates on the upcoming SODEOPEC 2008 and the 7th World Surfactants Congress.

SDA UPDATE
Brian Sansoni reports on SDA research that shows negligible threats from liquid detergent and fabric care products, and also a new podcast promoting the SNAP program. An obituary is also included on former SDA President Ted Brenner.

BOOK REVIEW
Surfactant Science and Technology by Drew Myers; Liquid Detergents, Second Edition, edited by Kuo-Yann Lai.

PUBLICATIONS & REPORTS
An overview is given on reports on the global demand for enzymes, and soap and other detergent manufacturing industry and its foreign trade.

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