Environmental Safety of the Use of Major Surfactant Classes in North America

Abstract

This paper brings together over 250 published and unpublished studies on the environmental properties, fate, and toxicity of the four major, high-volume surfactant classes and relevant feedstocks. The surfactants and feedstocks covered include alcohol sulfate or alcohol sulfate (AS), alcohol ethoxysulfate (AES), linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), alcohol ethoxylate (AE), and long-chain alcohol (LCOH). These chemicals are used in a wide range of personal care and cleaning products. To date, this is the most comprehensive report on these substance's chemical structures, use, and volume information, physical/chemical properties, environmental fate properties such as biodegradation and sorption, monitoring studies through sewers, wastewater treatment plants and eventual release to the environment, aquatic and sediment toxicity, and bioaccumulation information. These data are used to illustrate the process for conducting both prospective and retrospective risk assessments for large-volume chemicals and categories of chemicals with wide dispersive use. Prospective risk assessments of AS, AES, AE, LAS, and LCOH demonstrate that these substances, although used in very high volume and widely released to the aquatic environment, have no adverse impact on the aquatic or sediment environments at current levels of use. The retrospective risk assessments of these same substances have clearly demonstrated that the conclusions of the prospective risk assessments are valid and confirm that these substances do not pose a risk to the aquatic or sediment environments. This paper also highlights the many years of research that the surfactant and cleaning products industry has supported, as part of their environmental sustainability commitment, to improve environmental tools, approaches, and develop innovative methods appropriate to address environmental properties of personal care and cleaning product chemicals, many of which have become approved international standard methods.

Effects of linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) on the interspecific competition between Microcystis and Scenedesmus

“…This concentration of LAS was detected in some water ecosystems (Fox et al 2000;Tabor and Barber 1995). Even though this concentration of LAS had little impact on zooplankton, fishes (Cowan-Ellsberry et al 2014), and bloom-forming Microcystis, their effects promoting growth of S. obliquus and affecting water quality and ecosystem indirectly should be taken into account in the management of water environment. In addition, combined effects of climatic change, LAS, and some other factors on algal growth and competition should be also considered.…”

Solubility of hydrocarbon oils in alcohols (≤C6) and synthesis of difusel carbonate for degreasing

“…We hypothesized that longer chain alcohols could have sufficient non-polar character to become an interesting degreasing solution with low toxicity and ready biodegradability. [18][19][20][21] In this brief report, the qualitative solubility of hydrocarbon base oil, PAO and mineral oil, in some common, low molecular weight alcohols (#C 6 ) will be shown. We then synthesized the dialkyl carbonate from fusel oil, a by-product of higher alcohols from ethanol production, by transesterication of dimethyl carbonate.…”

Predicting risks from down‐the‐drain chemicals in a developing country: Mexico and linear alkylbenzene sulfonate as a case study

“…A residual concentration will be discharged and subsequently diluted with the receiving stream. For decades, researchers have been developing methods to assess the environmental fate and potential effects of these down-the-drain ingredients in aquatic systems (Rapaport 1988;Rapaport and Eckhoff 1990;Dyer and Caprara 1997;Versteeg et al 1999;Cowan-Ellsberry et al 2014).…”