Novel Surfactants and Cleaning Technologies

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For centuries, cleaning is an essential task for both household and industrial processes, whichrequires considerable amount of resources such as water and energy. To deliver a sustainablefuture for our society, innovation is urgently required in reducing the resource required forcleaning.The aim of this project is to develop innovative surfactants for removal of complex food soils.Building upon the Cleaning Map developed in 2009 (Fryer and Asteriadou, Trends Food Sci.Technol.), new insights concerning food fouling and cleaning have been established by the UoBteam in recent years (O. Herrera-Márquez et al. J. Cleaner Prod. 261, 2020, 121254; Avila-Sierraet al. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. 13, 2021, 35506), using advanced analytical methods acrossmultiple length scales.We will quantify the physical transformations involved in a food cleaning process such assurface energy of complex food, physico-chemical characteristics of the solid substrate, liquid-liquid interfacial energy as a function of surfactants used, Young's modulus of food foulant,diffusion kinetics of small molecules in matrix, surface adhesion as a function of pH and ionicstrength, cohesiveness of food foulant. Techniques to be used include a custom-buildmicromanipulation, Nanoindentation, contact angle goniometer, interfacial tensiometer, UV-vis,terahertz imaging, SWIR hyperspectral imaging, confocal microscopy, and microfluidic devices.It is envisaged that the project will identify and/or optimise a series of novel surfactants forsustainable cleaning whereby resources required could be kept at minimal level.