BIOSURFACTANT PRODUCTION THROUGH A VEGETABLE EXTRACT SELECTION
The global research in tensoatives has been developed in accordance with the amphiphilic properties, allowing an immesurable set of applications. However the toxicity of the chemical tensoatives motivates the development of environmental alternatives. In this sense, the work had the goal of vegetable surfactant production from fruit, leaf, and root (starfruit, eggplant, acerola, none, bredo, jelly, and beet). These natural surfactants, the biosurfactants, were extracted from different vegetables to analyze the surface tension and the emulsification index. The best surface tension was at 27.10 mN/m with the acerola production. Besides, the biosurfactant presented a complete emulsification index under extreme conditions. The data analyzed demonstrated alternatives to reduce the biosurfactant production cost, and presented an elevated biotechnological potential.