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BIOSEAL – Research pro­ject on smarter deter­gents forges new career prospects

27.12.2012
“We wanted to cre­ate more sus­tain­able deter­gents, blend­ing our his­tor­ic­al know-how with ideas from young European sci­ent­ists to really build a new revolu­tion­ary product,” says Johan Smets, a P&G research fel­low. Smets helped with the start of Bioseal, a pro­ject fun­ded by the European Uni­on’s pro­gramme of sup­port for the mobil­ity of research­ers known as Mar­ie Curie Actions (MCAs). The pro­ject set up fel­low­ships for sev­en PhD stu­dents to design more effect­ive and envir­on­ment­ally friendly deter­gents. The four year pro­ject, which began in Novem­ber 2005, received €1.04 mil­lion in EU fund­ing, and helped link aca­dem­ic and com­mer­cial part­ners from across Europe — includ­ing P&G and the uni­ver­sit­ies of Birm­ing­ham in the UK, Minho in Por­tugal, Leuven in Bel­gi­um, and Graz in Aus­tria — to design the deter­gent of the future. ​“We felt the best way to achieve this was with a Mar­ie Curie pro­gramme that com­bined dif­fer­ent centres of excel­lence with aca­dem­ic expert­ise to bring the product alive,” says Smets, the pro­ject coordin­at­or, P&G’s former prin­cip­al sci­ent­ist in charge of devel­op­ing nov­el tech­no­lo­gies for con­sumer good products. The research looked at a num­ber of key issues for mod­ern detergents: 
  • Com­pac­tion: this reduces the envir­on­ment­al foot­print by cut­ting pack­aging waste and increas­ing trans­port efficiency;
  • Enzymes: these bio­molecules act as cata­lysts inside a wash­ing machine. They are bio­de­grad­able, help reduce energy use by enabling lower wash­ing tem­per­at­ures and short­er wash­ing cycles, and are derived from renew­able sources;
  • Sur­fact­ants: these keep stains in the water and pre­vent their return to the fab­ric. But they are often derived from pet­ro­leum, and the research looked at devel­op­ing nat­ur­ally-derived surfactants.
  • Odours: cru­cial since per­fume is often the top con­sid­er­a­tion for consumers.
​“The pro­ject gave us new insights into how dirt and stains are encrus­ted in the fab­ric, and how chem­istry stains faster and bet­ter,” says Smets. By lever­aging new enzyme tech­no­lo­gies, a bet­ter under­stand­ing of clean­ing phe­nom­ena at the fab­ric sur­face, and an improved under­stand­ing of the inter­play between enzymes and sur­fact­ants in the deter­gent for­mu­la­tion, the Bioseal pro­ject delivered a deter­gent with increased envir­on­ment­al pro­file. ​“The res­ult was a deter­gent pro­to­type that delivered the same clean­ing per­form­ance with just one third of the volume,” Smets says. But Bioseal did more than just pro­duce a new deter­gent. It also helped train the stu­dents, res­ult­ing in 15 aca­dem­ic papers and two pat­ents. After the pro­ject, the research­ers found chal­len­ging jobs in aca­demia and the chem­ic­al industry. They include: work­ing for P&G; work­ing for Dan­ish enzyme sup­pli­er Dan­isco; doing research at the Uni­ver­sity of Gembloux on bios­ur­fact­ants; com­plet­ing a PhD at the Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham in the UK; work­ing for a phar­ma­ceut­ic­al com­pany, Novartis, in Spain; work­ing at an incub­a­tion centre at the Uni­ver­sity of Minho in Por­tugal, and work­ing at the Aus­tri­an Centre of Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy in Graz. And by for­ging key rela­tion­ships, it estab­lished a poten­tial life-long net­work of aca­dem­ics. ​“Bioseal helped devel­op innov­a­tion at the inter­face of sci­ence and industry,” says Smets, who says the exper­i­ence of coach­ing such a vari­ety of people and ideas was one of the most sat­is­fy­ing moments in his career. ​“We developed a strong sci­entif­ic approach: know­ledge and cap­ab­il­ity in Europe to innov­ate on sus­tain­ab­il­ity com­bined with bet­ter products for our customer.”

Pro­ject details

  • Par­ti­cipants: Bel­gi­um (Coordin­at­or), United King­dom, Italia, Por­tugal, Austria
  • FP6 Pro­ject N° 19885
  • EU con­tri­bu­tion: € 1 039 757
  • Dur­a­tion: Novem­ber 2005 — Octo­ber 2009
Source: European Commission
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