VIABILITY OF ENZYME SUBSTITUTION BY CHEMISTRY-STEPAN IN

CLEANSING PRODUCTS

Melissa Martínez1, Daniela Castellar2

1Technical Service–R&D Representative LATAM,2 Technical Service–R&D Chemical Eng. Intern

November 07th 2018

STEPAN COLOMBIA S.A.S. Calle 98 N° 9A-21 Piso 6°, Edificio Siracusa. Bogotá D.C. Colombia

ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to study the viability of enzyme substitution by chemistry-Stepan in cleansing products
through an extensive investigation of articles, magazines and books where the purpose, function, optimal conditions and reactions
of enzymes are understood, additionally a research about the market in Colombia in terms of Enzymatic Detergents was carried
out.

INTRODUCTION In the previous table the different reactions

Currently, in the cleaning products industry,
specifically detergents, in the formulations
each of the ingredients fulfills a specific
function, the main ingredient is called
surfactant which provides detergency and
foaming properties, however the use of
these surfactants brings environmental
problems since the waste after the washing
process is not usually biodegradable, for
this reason since 1930 enzymes began to
be implemented in detergents formulation
to reduce the amount of secondary
reactions and byproducts during the
washing process. Enzymes are proteins
that catalyze most biological reactions so
each must work with a specific substrate.
When speaking of enzymes in detergents,
it is necessary to take into account the type
of substrate (stain) that is to be eliminated
and thus select the appropriate enzyme in
a suitable manner. Additionally, the
different types of enzyme catalyze multiple
reactions (oxidation, reduction, etc.). Each
reaction is summarized below and the
respective enzyme that catalyzes it:
that occur in detergents with the enzymes
most used in the industry are shown. Since a
single substrate can give rise to multiple
reactions it’s necessary the addition of
cocktails of enzymes in which amylases and
proteases are usually used. Nonetheless the
use of proteases is about 60% of the enzymes
market. To clarify a little more, milk, for
example, can be classified as a fat and at the
same time as a protein, so probably using
only amylases will not be enough to eliminate
that substrate. The implementation of
enzymes in the industry has been growing
over the years as every day we seek to make
use of green engineering and these, being
organic molecules, are biodegradable,
require shorter washing times and improve
the removal of dirt. However, the use of these
enzymes has disadvantages since they are
easily denatured, that is, optimal conditions of
pH and temperature must be maintained. In
many cases, when the washing process is
carried out, the pH of the medium is altered
so that the functionality of the enzyme is lost,
this inconvenience means that enzymatic
encapsulation processes must be included,
thus increasing production costs.

On the other hand, the use of cocktails of

enzymes in formulations can cause a
degradation of amylases by proteases losing
then the cleansing property.

It's important to mentioned the application of

enzymes in cosmetics such as
Hyaluronidases as an active component in
Table 1. Reaction carried out for each type of enzyme dermal fillers, in this type of applications it’s
on substrate. necessary the use of nanotechnology to
improve the effectiveness of the product.
 VIABILITY OF ENZYME SUBSTITUTION BY CHEMISTRY-STEPAN IN
CLEANSING PRODUCTS

In Colombia, there are various enzymatic

detergents distributed by leading brands in
Latin America since the handling of these, as
mentioned above, should be handled with
caution and therefore not every producer can
afford the proper equipment to maintain the
proper conditions to stabilize the enzyme.
Since it was important to know which
detergents and the amount of them that we
can find in the market, a search was made in
different supermarkets in Bogotá D.C (Éxito
170, Éxito Suba, Éxito Colina, Jumbo Plaza
Central, among others) in which the following
Table 3. Ingredients for products found in benchmark.
detergents containing enzymes were found.
As shown the formulations of these
detergents are very similar since for all of
them with the exception of TOP TERRA the
Non-ionic surfactant it’s an ethoxylated
alcohol C12-C15 accordingly to the CAS
number found in the SDS of these products
and the Anionic surfactant used is Sodium
Lauryl Sulfate C12-18. Detergents like Vanish
that are specialize in stain removal have to
add an optical bleach in order to “whiten”
clothes but adding these agents can cause
early deterioration of clothing. The added
enzymes as mentioned before, are usually
Proteases and Amylases, in the formulation
Table 2. Benchmark of enzymatic detergents in enzymes should not exceed 5%.
Colombia.
Additionally, in order to know the market a
A characterization for the products found in survey of 9 questions was carried out to 36
table 2 was carried to make formulations people from strata 2-4. One of the most
similar to those of the market in the future important question was which of the following
performance tests. For this purpose, four brands do you prefer?
detergents were chosen to carry out the
performance tests. (TOP TERRA, VANISH
OXI ACTION, VANISH OXI ACTION TOTAL
WHITE, FAB STAIN REMOVER). The
ingredients for each detergent are shown
below.

Figure 1. Results question 1 of survey.

As shown in the previous diagram the

preferred brand is “Ariel”, nonetheless in the
 VIABILITY OF ENZYME SUBSTITUTION BY CHEMISTRY-STEPAN IN
benchmark that was carried out none of the
enzymatic detergents found was brand Ariel.
Additionally, another important question was
aiming to understand if the future clients
knows about the use of enzymes and similar
additives where the 31% of interviewed
doesn’t know such additives as shown
below.
Figure 2. Results question 2 of survey.
In this sense, the aim of the present study is
to determine if chemistry-Stepan is viable as
a replacement of enzymes providing the
market a new product that it’s friendlier with
the environment and give to the industry an
easy product to manage at different
conditions.
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CLEANSING PRODUCTS
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