Chemist Laura Jansen of Radboud University has managed to make well-functioning soap from sugar beet pulp (a residual stream from sugar beet). This could make a sustainable alternative to bio-based soaps. Laura Jansen will receive her PhD on this topic on 8 November.
When sucrose is extracted from sugar beet, for example for sweets, sugar beet pulp remains as a residual stream. Jansen: ’The sugar beet pulp is usually used as fodder, but as this pulp contains interesting sugar molecules, I wanted to see if we could create added value for the pulp.’
Soluble in water and oil
Soap works like this: the molecule has two parts, one dissolves in water, the other in oil. When something has to be washed, the dirt dissolves in the oil and the water washes the dirt away. Every soap works that way: from your hand soap to your detergent.
The chemist: ’Sugars dissolve in water, think of sugar in your tea, but not in oil. That’s why I modified the sugar molecules from the pulp with green chemistry , so that they dissolve in both water ánd oil. I glued a kind of tail to the sugar molecules, so to speak.’ Jansen created a new molecule, one that she has also obtained a patent for in cooperation with innovative company Cosun RD&I. The tests she did in the lab with the new soap worked: ’The piece of fabric we washed got clean with this "soap".’
Upcycling
This way, the pulp is upcycled and a sustainable soap is created. ’This sugar molecule from biomass is a good green alternative. Besides, it is also sulphate-free and mild for your skin.’
The next step is to get the overall picture from pulp to product before companies start infiltrating this new soap base into their process. ’For that, we first need to see whether making this molecule can be scaled up: so far, at least, it is working very well in the lab,’ says Jansen.
