Develop Fatty Acids and Value Added Surfactants Using Green Chemistry and Enzymatic Catalysis Process

A Manufacturing Process

The company proposes chemical or biotechnological process solutions to industrial companies to develop manufacturing processes and new products based on fatty compounds achieving strong innovation and green/sustainability values.

The company offers to design, implement & promote process development and scale up projects leveraging its long acquired expertise and capabilities in chemical and enzymatic process development of fatty compounds.

Typical solutions relate to enzymatic hydrolysis of tri-glycerides, quaternization of fatty chains, and development of unique esters, enzymatic grafting of sugar compounds on fatty chains to make a 100% natural ingredient (natural surfactant…).

Fatty compounds and their derivatives are a family of multi-functional molecules used in formulation industries. These molecules bring unique properties such as surface modification, sensory touch effects, emulsification, emollient/moisturization, and lubrication, specific and active ingredients …

These chemicals are high on the radar of R&D teams and innovators as many of them come from natural / renewable raw materials. Thus developing new product ranges based on renewable fatty compounds allows addressing the market need for higher performance product as well as more sustainable products.

Many projects aim to add functionality to fatty compounds and identify unique new properties. Typical target molecules can be polymers with long fatty chains, alcohols, ionic / non-ionic / amphoteric surfactants …

Adding functionality can be done in 2 different ways:
• Chemical modification: multiple synthesis pathways of this company allow rapid access to multiple molecular structures which is the best way to screen and test new families of products. Synthesis is fast, cost attractive and may offer several options to maintain the renewable content of the final product
• Biotechnological / enzymatic modification : enzymatic catalysis introduces 2 major advantages for adding functionality to fatty compounds. Enzymatic catalysis is able to keep the natural content of the products (thus make them eligible for certain labels or certifications, claims related to natural content). Because of the very selective nature of enzymatic catalysis some functional groups can be activated while preserving other functions

Launch a project to add functionalities to fatty compounds via enzymatic or chemical modification can have 2 different starting points:
• Your synthesis pathway has already been identified: Process development experts will look at the results of your tests and studies, analyze them and finally develop and optimize the process to reach industrial scale
• You have not yet identified the synthesis pathway: In this case, your project needs to fit the process development skill set of the company to quickly identify the pathway (esterification, hydrolysis…)

Implementing collaboration with this company includes some of the following steps:
• Definition of scope of collaboration for the project (target molecules, process steps to be developed)
• Feasibility study by the company
• Development and optimization of the industrial process at lab scale pilot (a few liters)
• Development of analytical testing methods
• Scale-up of process development to pilot-scale (100 to 700 liters)
• Scale-up to industrial production (2,000 to 25,000 liters)
• Development of process related sustainability claims (energy consumption, carbon footprint, soft processing…). This is a unique feature of this company. Beyond sustainable process development the company digs into innovation to promote claims which makes sense for your product’s consumers.

Typical project duration will last between 4 months and 1 year.

• Multi-step retro-engineering of target molecules
• Requests from brand owners / manufacturers of finished goods in the Personal Care space

Based in France, SpecialChem client can offer a strategic partnership to American and Asian companies which would be interested to develop their activities on the European fatty compounds market.
If you are a specialty chemical manufacturer for formulation industries, this company has a unique approach and strong experience on developing sustainability claims related to the manufacturing process. This can offer a new dimension to product differentiation.

• Industry our client is in: Chemistry and Biotechnology
• Annual Revenue: 84 M€
• Years in Business: 70
• Headquarters Area (NAFTA / EUROPE / ASIA…): Europe