Viridi, Zschimmer & Schwarz Partner on CO2 Surfactants
UK firm Viridi's Vireya platform incorporates captured carbon dioxide, offering up to a 70% lower product carbon footprint and a tenfold mildness improvement over conventional options for personal care.
New Surfactants Target Lower Carbon Footprint
UK clean chemistry company Viridi is developing a new category of anionic surfactants that utilize captured carbon dioxide (CO2). This initiative aims to reduce the environmental impact of personal care ingredients while maintaining formulation performance. The company's Vireya platform integrates up to 33% CO2 into its structure.
Viridi states this results in a product carbon footprint up to 70% lower than traditional surfactants. Initial testing also shows comparable cleansing and foaming capabilities when measured against sodium laureth sulfate (SLES).
Catalyst Enables CO2 Integration
Incorporating CO2 as a feedstock presents challenges due to its inherent stability and low reactivity. Viridi has addressed this by creating a solid catalyst designed to lower the energy required for the reaction, allowing CO2 to be integrated into the surfactant's molecular structure.
This catalyst operates at lower temperatures than existing alternatives, can be reused multiple times, and contains no harmful components.
It is also engineered to function within existing surfactant production facilities, aiming to ensure that CO2-derived options can be manufactured without requiring new infrastructure or incurring higher production costs than conventional surfactants.
Performance and Mildness Claims
Viridi's development work includes assessing key properties such as surface-tension reduction, foam generation, foam nature, stability, and cleansing performance. The company also evaluates mildness before integrating the surfactants into complete formulations.
The potential irritancy of Vireya has been assessed using the Zein test, an established in vitro screening method for surfactant mildness. This test measures interaction with zein, a plant-based protein analogous to skin keratin. In these tests, Vireya showed up to a tenfold improvement in mildness compared with SLES.
Commercialization and Asia Sourcing Outlook
Beyond Viridi's internal laboratories, the company is collaborating with consumer brand owners on application testing and formulation optimization. German specialty chemicals manufacturer Zschimmer & Schwarz is also working with Viridi under a joint development agreement.
This partnership focuses on scaling and commercializing the CO2-based surfactants, following extensive trials that identified multiple potential applications. For Asia's beauty industry, this development signals a future sourcing option for sustainable ingredients.
Brands in markets like South Korea and Japan, which prioritize eco-conscious formulations, may consider these CO2-derived surfactants as they become commercially available, potentially impacting ingredient supply chains by late 2027 or early 2028.
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