Surfactants and Biosurfactants in Sustainable Environment Treatment: Advances, Applications, and Environmental Impacts

Dear Colleagues,

Adsorption, aggregation and wetting properties of surfactants determine their applications, not only in everyday life, but also in numerous fields of industry as well as environmental protection. Such versatile applications of surfactants and their universality in our life make them affect the quality of our life, our health and the condition of natural environment. Due to their extensive applications, the consumption of surfactants is enormous, which contributing to an increasingly serious environmental problem. Therefore, the current investigations of surfactants focus first of all on the search and study of compounds characterized by insignificant impact on the natural environment, large or even complete biodegradability, physiological properties neutral for humans and low production costs. The surfactants with such properties are most often compounds based on renewable raw materials (for example, carbohydrate surfactants) or biosurfactants. Though the costs of their preparation are not low, their profitable usable properties contribute to the fact that their practical applications grow consistently over time. These surfactants can be a perfect alternative to the synthetic ones prepared from non-renewable raw materials, particularly where they have a direct contact with humans. The application of surfactants is very wide. Because of that, surfactants, the one hand, can be treated as pollution, but on the other hand, they can significantly improve the quality of the natural environment, e.g., water. In order to be able to assess the risk of the impact of surfactants on the environment, it is necessary to determine their physicochemical properties. The obtained results indicate that the physicochemical properties of surfactants differ depending on the type of functional groups present in the surfactant molecules. Moreover, the presence of different functional groups (polar as well as nonpolar) results in different biodegradation efficiencies of surfactants. Thus, the aim of the Special Issue is to present the latest achievements and research on the use of functional surfactants and biosurfactants in industry, everyday life and the natural environment, paying special attention to the role of surfactants in improving the properties of the natural environment. Papers dealing with the biodegradability of different groups of surfactants in the environment and their sustainable applications are especially welcome.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Biodegradability of surfactants;
• Surfactants and biosurfactants in water treatment;
• Biopolymers;
• Adsorption and aggregation properties of surfactants;
• Wetting properties of natural surfactants;
• Special surfactants in industry and environment treatment;
• Detection of surfactants in natural environment.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Joanna Krawczyk
Dr. Joanna Karasiewicz
Guest Editors

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• surfactants
• biosurfactants
• biopolymers
• adsorption
• solubilization
• aggregation
• wetting
• water treatment
• detection of surfactants