ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION During the past years and decades, several sugar-based surfactants, such as sorbitan esters, sucrose esters, methyl glucoside esters, alkyl polyglycosides, and methyl glucamides, have been introduced to the market by different manufacturers. Among those, the recently industrially developed alkyl polyglycosides are the most successful if one considers an estimated market potential of 70,000-80,000 tons/year for 1997 [1,2]. Whereas the first alkyl glucoside was synthesized and identified in the laboratory by Emil Fischer more than 100 years ago [3] and the first patent application describing the use of alkyl glucosides in detergents was filed in Germany some 40 years later [4,5], the breakthrough in the commercial exploitation of alkyl polyglycosides was reached in 1992 with the inauguration of a 23,000 t p.a. production plant for APG® surfactants in the United States by Cognis Corporation (formerly Henkel Corporation) and in 1995 with the opening of a second plant of equal capacity by Cognis (formerly Henkel KGaA) in Germany [6].
