Sasol Chemicals' Louis Snyders joined a panel of industry experts to help explain the difference between bio-based surfactants and biosurfactants to readers of the industry trade publication SOFW Journal.

Snyders is Head of Home Care and Industrial & Institutional Cleaning for the company's Essential Care Chemicals unit.  He was joined by peers from Clariant, Dow and Weylchem in the group interview.

Snyders discussed the differences between the two sustainable elements and provided insights into their use and benefits.

"Bio-based surfactants are drop-in chemicals and identical molecular structure to the currently available petrochemical surfactants," he said.  "However, they are derived from biobased feedstocks instead of fossil feedstocks.  Biosurfactants present unique molecular structures as being produced from bio-based feedstocks/natural raw materials via fermentation using micro-organisms (yeasts, bacteria).  Hence, biosurfactants are characterized by a fully natural production process and their unique molecular structures can give rise to additional and/or enhanced performance attributes."

Read the Q&A here or access the full publication in English or German.