An industry bubbling with new ideas: SODEOPEC looks at the latest developments that are impacting the detergent and personal care industry.

HUMBLE SOAP'S proud heritage and bright future was celebrated at SODEOPEC 2006. SODEOPEC, an acronym for Soaps, Detergents, Oleochemicals and Personal Care Products, was organized by the American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS) and co-sponsored by The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) and the surfactant and detergent division of the AOCS. The event, held April 2-6 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, attracted more than 300 industry professionals from 36 countries. The turnout exceeded expectations, according to organizers.

"Attendees and exhibitors have told us that they learned more and were exposed to many more new ideas than they expected," said Luis Spitz, conference organizer, long-time industry expert and president of L. Spitz, Inc., a consultancy group. According to Mr. Spitz, attendees appreciated the conference's unique format of tackling four subjects (soaps, detergents, oleochemicals and personal care products) in great detail.

"Following the conference, many company executives told me that they regretted not sending more people to SODEOPEC," added Mr. Spitz. "We must convince corporations that this is a very inexpensive, yet worthwhile way to make good contacts and learn more about the industry."

In addition to technical presentations, SODEOPEC included an exhibition of a wide range of products and services to the industry. Exhibitors included the SDA, Luzenac North America, Ballestra, Mazzoni and Sela. Here's a review of the technical presentations.

The meeting kicked off with a presentation by Norman Hall on the fundamentals of soap formulation and structure. Mr. Hall, president of Continua Consultancy Service, UK, provided a brief look at how soap is made from both fats and oils, and fatty acids, and explained the important role that oil selection (tallow and nut oil) plays in creating an effective soap. The speaker also explained how Eutectics plays an important role in successful formulations.

Eutectic property is created when the molecules of two (or more) of the materials in a mixture have completely different shapes or sizes. If two molecules have totally different shapes or sizes, explained Mr. Hall, they cannot pack together neatly.

"Effectively, each molecule 'poisons' the other so that it cannot crystallize normally, and the abnormal crystals have higher solubility," he explained.

He also warned the audience that soap hardness and processing properties depend on the mix of the fatty acid chain lengths present and not on the names of the oils from which those fatty acids are derived.

Mr. Hall also provided insight on the role that individual ingredients can have on bar soap integrity. Generally speaking:

* The higher the iodine value/lower the titer equals less cracking;

* Increased nut oil equals less cracking;

* Increased glycerol equals increased mush and increased cracking;

* Increased perfume equals less cracking;

* Superfatting decreases soap cracking; and

* More electrolyte equals more cracking.

The Outlook for Feedstocks

But before soapers can tackle formulation problems, they must be assured that their feedstocks are adequate. Jose Luis Berna of Petresa noted that rising energy prices have had a major impact on linear alkyl benzene prices. Yet, prices could remain depressed because there is an oversupply of LAB on a global scale that is expected to become even more severe during the next few years. What's worse, more LAB capacity is expected to come onstream in the next few years. In fact, according to Mr. Berna's estimates, LAB supply is expected to exceed demand until 2016. Simarily, detergent alcohols will face a considerable oversupply situation through 2015.

"The existing LAB overcapacity and expected future plants will create a situation whereby less economic operations will most likely be subject to rationalization," concluded Mr. Berna.

An overview of the oleochemical segment was provided by Manuel Venegas of Procter & Gamble. He noted that the market is currently tight due to unexpected demands caused primarily by the fast shutdown of inefficient plants. Moreover, the speaker said that more companies will gravitate to new, natural sources of oil, such as methyl ester sulphonates (MES) which are derived from palm oil and already widely used by several players in the detergent industry.

But Mr. Venegas also provided details on cuphea oil, which is derived from a wild plant that is indigenous to the Americas. Cuphea produces oil seeds of unusually, specific mid-chain triglyceride composition. In fact, the oil provides tailored triglyceride composition for target end points; e.g., C12-C14 for detergents and C10 for derivatives.

With such a compatible profile, at first glance cuphea would seem to be an excellent choice for detergent makers. But the speaker warned that much work remains if cuphea is to become a viable feedstock for the detergent industry. Specifically, researchers are trying to optimize seed genetics for mid-cut acids, increase yield sufficiently to achieve commodity feasibility and execute agronomic and processing experiments to squeeze every drop of oil from the seeds.

"Few farmers will change without the support from government and industry," he warned. "There is too much risk of failure."

The basic principles of bleaching were detailed by Roberto Berbesi of Oil Dri Corporation. He explained how bleaching clay is manufactured, how it works and what affects bleaching. He told the audience that effective bleaching depends on the nature of the raw sorbent materials, activation of the sorbent, process conditions of the oil and the desired finished oil quality. Mr. Berbesi detailed how interactions between clay dose, temperature, contact time and moisture level all have an impact on bleach production.

The Benefits of Experimental Design

Once the formulator has the correct ingredients to work with, there are ways to optimize the formulation process. George Smith of Huntsman explained how experimental design can help optimize the formulation process. He noted that for too long the industry has relied on trial-and-error formulation optimization.

But trial-and-error can be time-consuming, comfounding of variables, not global, have no prediction capability and no indication of robustness. In contrast, formulators can use a mixture design to optimize the surfactant blend ratio in an LDL to obtain the best cost-performance and obtain a better understanding of the different surfactants in LDL performance. In an HDL formula, the surfactant blend ratio can be optimized to obtain the best cost-performance for a variety of different soil types.

"Mixture design is ideal for optimizing cleaning formulations. The technique is simple, fast and reduces the number of experiments required to find the optimum," said Mr. Smith. "It can be used to model both physical and performance properties and the results can be used to better understand physical behavior."

Getting Personal

Of course, SODEOPEC 2006 was not devoted to detergent formulations. Julia Hernandez-Marin of McIntyre, provided insight into the global skin care market. Driven by a variety of demographic issues including an aging population, a racially diverse population and the growing influence of the male consumer, the global skin care product sales rose 7% in 2004 to more than $50 billion. According to Ms. Hernandez-Marin, the premium segment accounted for 40% of global skin care sales in 2004. But at the same time, more consumers have access to the upper-mass segment via the introduction of Olay Regenerist and similar products.

The speaker looked at a variety of subsegments within the skin care sector, noting that the anti-aging and anti-cellulite categories soared 11% and 14%, respectively, in 2004. Within other categories, sales of bath and shower products rose 6% to $21.7 billion and hand care sales increased 10% to $1.6 billion. Sun care sales rose 12% to $4.7 billion worldwide.

Looking ahead, Ms. Hernandez-Marin predicted that demand for "wellness" products, spa items and at-home treatments will continue to grow, along with an increasing consumer preference for natural products.

She also reviewed some of the trends shaping the Latin American market, noting that more than 22% of the 34 million Hispanics living in the U.S. are between the ages of 12 and 24. Within the $3.1 billion Latin American skin care market, Avon is the segment leader, followed by Natura, Unilever, Beiersdorf and L'Oreal. Interestingly, bar soaps maintain 90% share of the sector value within the bath and shower products.

Innovative Ideas

What formulation trends will drive the market forward in the future? Shyam Gupta, president of Bioderm Research and a frequent HAPPI contributor, provided insight into several nature-based, multifunctional ingredients and targeted delivery systems.

By harnessing enzyme modulation capabilities, Dr. Gupta was able to create a facial glow system that brightens and moisturizes skin, controls oil and limits inflammation, which the speaker called the biggest cause of aging.

One way to control inflammation is through the inhibition of matrix metalloproteases (MMP), which are naturally-occuring zinc-dependent endopeptidases found in most mammals. MMPs perform extracellular tissue (matrix) reorganization.

He went on to explain that ubiquitin is a small protein that occurs in most eukaryotic cells. Its main function is to mark intracellular proteins for destruction via proteolysis. According to Dr. Gupta, the Ubiquitin-Proteasome system controls basic cellular processes such as cell division, cell signalling and gene regulation. The system also removes misfolded, damaged proteins. He noted that aging slows ubiquitin-proteasome proteolytic activity, resulting in the accumulation of ubiquitinylated proteins via isopeptide bonds. This accumulation causes the onset of inflammation.

Terri Germain, R&D manager, McIntyre Group Ltd., gave the audience a primer on how to select the proper ingredients for a variety of personal liquid cleansers including bodywash, shampoo and handwash, noting that all of them are similar in structure. She also reviewed the typical raw materials found in each formula along with their proper use level. For example, in a review of a typical body and hand wash formula, she urged the audience to incorporate enough emollient.

"If you're going to put emollients in your formula, make sure you add enough of it so that it does something," she urged the audience.

MES in Soaps and Detergents

With raw material costs surging for traditional detergent feedstocks, methyl ester sulfonates are an attractive alternative surfactant, said Norman C. Foster, Chemithon Corp. He noted that MES is an inexpensive raw material, has good surfactant properties and can be manufactured using existing sulfonation plants. MES is already being used commercially and Huish Detergents, the largest private label detergent manufacturer in the U.S., brought an 82,000 metric ton/year plant on line in 2001. According to Dr. Foster, the production costs to manufacture MES are about 40% less than LAB. Moreover, as biodiesel becomes a popular alternative fuel source it will create a big increase in methyl ester availability.

In a presentation on fatty alcohol derivatives for household and personal care applications, Lee Matheson of Sasol reviewed the various processes used to develop surfactants and concluded that there is really no technical justification to prefer oleochemical over petrochemical alcohol derivatives on the basis of environmental acceptability.

No matter what the product form--laundry detergent, personal cleanser or household cleaner--contract and private label manufacturing is playing a bigger role in the industry, insisted Marty Meyer, national accounts manager, contract packaging group, Marrietta Corp. He noted that several trends, including shorter life cycles for consumer products, a shift from mass production to mass customization and speed-to-market, are all creating more demand for contract and private label services. As a result, consumer product companies continue to close their own production facilities and turn to outside companies for production help. At the same time, startups and virtual companies depend on contract manufacturers for all their production needs.

Finally, Mr. Spitz himself gave an insightful presentation on the processing steps and the equipment necessary in bar soap finishing. He reviewed a variety of equipment used in each step, including: mixing, refining, extruding, cutting, stamping and packaging.

Mr. Spitz closed the conference with a brief film on soap-manufacturing in Turkey and a heartfelt thanks to all those in attendance.