ABSTRACT
Green surfactants have numerous advantages compared to conventional surfactants like higher biodegradability, environmental compatibility, improved foaming action, high selectivity, less toxicity and excellent activity at ambient conditions. It can be obtained from non-exhaustible and sustainable feedstock such as nonedible seed oils by reaction with sugars, amino acids and organic acids. This article will focus on production of sugar- and amino acid-based surfactants from nonedible oils by enzymatic interesterification process. Nonedible seed oils are triacyl esters of fatty acids. So these seed oils or fatty acids separated from the oil will react with sugars and amino acids for production of green surfactants. This chapter emphasizes on the synthesis of green surfactants by enzymatic esterification method and the performance of the several reaction conditions such as effect of solvent, molar ratio of fatty acids, sugar, type of enzyme and temperature for production of sugar esters by enzymatic method is discussed.
