Meet the BioLoop Family — Soybean, Sunflower & Rapeseed Variants
- sarahjiang1
- Jul 17
- 5 min read
Written by : Dr. Cathy Cooper, Technical Manager
Executive Summary
For decades, formulators have relied on alcohol ethoxylates and other petrochemical surfactants to deliver wetting, detergency, emulsification and cleaning performance. Whilst effective, growing pressure from regulators, customers and sustainability targets is driving demand for alternatives that can reduce reliance on non-renewable raw materials without sacrificing performance.
Lankem's BioLoop Technology was developed to address this challenge.
Unlike many bio-based surfactants, which often require significant compromises in detergency, performance or formulation flexibility, BioLoop surfactants were designed to combine high renewable carbon content with the properties expected from modern industrial and consumer formulations.
Today, the BioLoop platform extends beyond the original soy-based products to include surfactants derived from rapeseed and sunflower oils, providing formulators with a family of renewable, biodegradable and exceptionally mild surfactants suitable for a wide range of applications.
The Challenge with Conventional Surfactants
Most nonionic surfactants used in industry today are derived primarily from petrochemical feedstocks. While these materials are highly effective, manufacturers increasingly face pressure to increase renewable content and thus improve the sustainability and environmental impacts of their formulation.
Many traditional bio-based alternatives have attempted to address these requirements, but often at the expense of performance, stability or cost-effectiveness.
What Makes BioLoop Technology Different?
The BioLoop range of products combine naturally derived vegetable oil hydrophobes with hydrophilic chains originating from molasses. A key advantage of the BioLoop range is the flexibility to utilise different renewable vegetable oil sources. The original BioLoop products were developed using soybean-derived hydrophobes, but further innovation has added rapeseed and sunflower variants to the range. These offer alternatives to palm-derived materials and allows customers to align surfactant selection with specific sustainability objectives, sourcing strategies or market requirements.
Rather than using a simple linear structure, BioLoop surfactants utilise a distinctive molecular design in which the renewable fatty hydrophobes are linked with a hydrophilic loop. The length of the loop can be adjusted to tune the hydrophile-lipophile balance (HLB) as required, and Lankem offers a choice of three lengths for each oil type. Small variations in fatty acid structure between different natural oils provide a range of hydrophobic character, helping to tailor HLB and performance characteristics.
The result is a surfactant family that offers:
Excellent detergency
Effective wetting
Controlled foaming profiles
Excellent formulation compatibility
High renewable carbon content
Outstanding mildness
This combination allows BioLoop surfactants to act as effective alternatives to many conventional alcohol ethoxylates and related nonionic surfactants in a wide range of formulations.
Tradename Variants
The standard BioLoop tradename covers the use of this technology within a range of applications based upon detergency and emulsification properties. However, alternative products with different levels of post-processing are available specifically for the Coatings & Inks area and for the Personal Care & Cosmetics sectors.
Sustainability Credentials
The renewable origin of BioLoop surfactants is independently verified using radiocarbon (carbon-14) analysis. Plants naturally absorb carbon-14 from the atmosphere during growth, whereas fossil-based carbon contains virtually none, due to millions of years of radioactive decay. By measuring the carbon-14 content using accredited ASTM D6866 testing, the proportion of renewable carbon within a product can be accurately determined.
Independent testing has shown BioLoop products to contain over 98% bio-based carbon, providing robust, third-party evidence that the carbon used in these surfactants comes almost entirely from recently grown biomass rather than fossil resources.
Ultra-Mild by Design
Mildness is an important consideration for surfactants used in personal care and household cleaning formulations. To better understand the skin compatibility of BioLoop surfactants, Lankem collaborated with XCellR8 as part of an Innovate UK project to help develop the animal-free XtraMild ET50 testing method. This approach uses a reconstructed human epidermis model to provide a more representative assessment of irritation potential than traditional screening methods.
During the test, the surfactant is applied to a model of human skin and cell viability is measured using an MTT dye assay. Results are reported as an ET50 value – the time required for the material to reduce skin cell viability to 50%. Higher ET50 values indicate a milder product with lower irritation potential. By benchmarking against known surfactants and formulations, the method provides a practical and scientifically robust way to compare mildness and support the development of gentler consumer products.
Results have shown BioLoop surfactants to exhibit excellent mildness characteristics, making them particularly attractive in applications where operator exposure, consumer safety or skin compatibility are important considerations.
Performance Without Compromise
A common concern when switching to bio-based ingredients is the potential loss of performance, however, BioLoop technology was specifically developed to avoid this compromise. Across industrial and consumer applications, BioLoop surfactants provide:
Effective Detergency: BioLoop surfactants exhibit strong cleaning performance and can remove oils, greases and particulate soils from a variety of surfaces.
This was tested in the laboratory using steel plates that were treated with a test soil formulation of pigments and oils. These were immersed in surfactant solution at a concentration of 5g/L and rotated for 2 hours to allow for dirt removal. After drying, detergency performance was evaluated through photography and calculation of percentage dirt removal based on the difference between starting and final mass.
Excellent Wetting: The surfactants in the BioLoop range deliver rapid wetting and spreading characteristics, helping improve formulation efficiency and substrate coverage. This was evaluated in the Lankem laboratory using a First Ten Angstrom FTÅ 200 goniometer, where the contact angle of a 0.1% w/w surfactant solution was evaluated on a range of substrates. The lower the contact angle compared with that of pure water, the more efficient the BioLoop surfactant at improving this property.
Foaming Profile: Different BioLoop grades offer varying foam characteristics, allowing formulators to select the most appropriate product for their application. In general, the shorter chain variants offer very low levels of foam generation with the medium and longest chains giving an intermediate level of foaming compared with traditional synthetic surfactants. This flexibility is particularly valuable in industrial cleaning, textile processing and agricultural formulations.
Broad Compatibility: BioLoop surfactants are compatible with many conventional formulation components and stable across a wide formulation pH range, making them straightforward to incorporate into existing systems.
Dispersion Ability: A dispersing agent plays a critical role in unlocking the full potential of a pigment, and the Lansperse range of products have been designed with this challenge in mind. By providing effective steric stabilisation, BioLoop technology dispersants help prevent pigment particles from re-agglomerating after milling, maintaining a stable and uniform dispersion. The result can be improved colour strength, gloss and opacity, alongside good viscosity control and storage stability. This ability to keep pigments optimally dispersed makes the Lansperse BIO, SUN and RPS products well suited to modern coatings formulations where consistent performance is essential.
Looking Forward
The transition to more sustainable surfactant technologies is no longer a future aspiration—it is becoming a commercial necessity. However, sustainability alone is not enough. Manufacturers still need surfactants that perform reliably, formulate easily and deliver consistent results.
By combining renewable feedstocks from soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oils with proven surfactant performance, BioLoop Technology provides a practical route towards more sustainable formulations without compromising functionality.
As formulators continue to reduce dependence on fossil-derived raw materials, Lankem offers an established, technically robust platform capable of supporting the next generation of industrial and consumer products across a range of market sectors.
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