The detergent industry is feeling the pain of increasing raw material prices as it tries to cope with the demand for high-performing and greener, more sustainable products at the same cost. Novozymes is leveraging its experience with bioinnovation to offer enzymatic solutions that not only help stabilize formulation costs but also add to the overall sustainability of detergents.

Today, the biggest chunk of detergent formulation cost is dedicated to surfactants and builders. These ingredients have over the past few years experienced some of the largest price increases among detergent raw materials. At the same time, enzymes have enjoyed a relatively stable cost development.

What are surfactants and builders? Surfactants and builders are traditional detergent ingredients. Surfactants are surface-active agents that help remove soil from fabric surfaces and keep the soil in suspension in the wash solution so that it does not redeposit on clothes. Builders function as service chemicals for the remaining detergent ingredients and constitute the chemical and physical backbone in a detergent. For example, builders reduce water hardness and therefore increase the efficiency of some surfactants.

“The time has come for detergent manufacturers to de­­couple their cost base from ingredients that are affected by volatile energy prices and resource shortages, and ensure they offer their customers a superior and environmentally friendly product at an acceptable cost,” says Anders Lund, Marketing Director for detergents at Novozymes.

Working toward a greener detergent
Detergent manufacturers around the world are seeking innovation that can make their products more sustainable.

Part of the team working on optimizing detergent formulations with a multi-enzyme solution

One clear path to creating a more sustainable detergent is to use more sustainable feedstock, use compaction wherever possible, utilize low-volume materials like polymers, and increase the use of biobased ingredients like enzymes to replace surfactants, according to Charles Bragg of Procter & Gamble, who spoke about sustainable detergents at the 7th World Surfactants Congress in June 2008 in Paris*.

“At Novozymes, for years now, we have been figuring out how enzymes work with other ingredients in a formulation; and now we’re using our knowledge to replace detergent ingredients with a multi-enzyme solution,” says Sandra Friis-Jensen, Global Launch Manager for detergents at Novozymes. “We have extensive research in-house and from collaborations with partners that clearly show that a customized multi-enzyme solution can replace a percentage of surfactants and builders, or a percentage of the overall formulation – without loss in wash performance.”

Detergent manufacturers are also looking for biobased alternatives to chemicals that are already banned, or risk being banned, in several countries.

One example of this is phosphate-based builders such as STP/STPP, which are banned in several countries because phosphorus causes eutrophication (depletion of oxygen in water bodies) of many fresh waters.

Dr Ulrich Pegelow from Henkel spoke at the Cleaning Products conference in September 2008 in London about the efforts made by Henkel to replace STP/STPP with solutions that have a better ecological profile.

Research conducted by Novozymes shows that a multi-enzyme solution optimized for a particular formulation can substitute STP/STPP and still maintain detergent performance. Since enzymes are readily biodegradable, they offer an environmentally friendly answer to phosphate-based ingredients.

“Sustainability has been the major theme in several recent detergent conferences in Europe and the United States. And all the stakeholders are very clear about sustainability being the way forward for our industry,” says Michael Carlsson Lauesgaard, Marketing Manager for Europe at Novozymes. “Reformulating with enzymes is the low-hanging fruit that helps formulators improve detergent sustainability and performance without compromising costs.”

Lower the temperature
One of the benefits of using detergent enzymes is that they are also efficient at low temperatures. This is important when looking at the life cycle of a laundry detergent. According to Charles Bragg, in Western Europe 75% of the energy consumed during the life of a laundry detergent is consumed during the in-use phase and is used specifically to heat water for washing*.

“It’s now possible to use a detergent reformulated with enzymes and get the same result at temperatures of 30 °C or 40 °C for wash that before only showed good results at 60 °C,” says Hanne Philbert Nielsen, R&D Science Manager at Novozymes. “Danlind’s CARE product is a good example of how reformulation can ensure high performance at low temperatures. Danlind optimized their formula with four types of enzymes, an altered surfactant system, and a bleach activator to achieve a high-performance cold-wash detergent.”

Sustainability is the talk of the town
Besides making their products more environmentally friendly, detergent manufacturers are increasing the sustainability profile of their corporations by investing in carbon footprint reduction.

Large detergent producers like Procter & Gamble, Henkel, Unilever, and Reckitt Benckiser have all launched efforts to create environmentally friendly cleaning products. Reckitt Benckiser is taking this one step further, announcing its aim to reduce the company’s carbon footprint by 20% by 2020; and P&G has announced that the company will reduce CO2 emissions, energy and water consumption, and disposed waste by 40% by 2012.

Novozymes is underscoring its position as a leader in sustainability by entering a partnership with DONG Energy, a Danish energy company, to make site Novozymes Denmark carbon neutral for electricity as early as 2012.

“As a socially and environmentally respon­sible company, we constantly try to optimize the energy efficiency of our production. Now we are taking the next step to base our production on renewable energy,” says Anders Lund.

* Source: Tom Branna, Troubling Times, Happi, August 2008.