Characterization of a natural surfactant from an essential oil from neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) for textile industry applications
2022
Siqueira de Azevedo Sá, Christiane | Ladchumananandasivam, Rasiah | Rossi, Cátia GFT | Silva, Rita K da | Camboim, Wilka da Silva | Zille, Andrea | Padrão, Jorge | Silva, Késia K de Oliveira Souto
Surfactants are multipurpose active compounds and are ubiquitously present in detergents. Detergent demand spiked due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, further alerting to the need to replace petrochemical synthetic surfactants with natural and renewable surfactants to mitigate further environmental damage. The neem tree (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) is a fast-growing tree that provides a multitude of commodities, namely neem oil. Neem oil possesses insecticidal and medicinal activity. This work reports the extraction and characterization of a surfactant from neem oil (SNO), displaying a yield of approximately 100%. SNO exhibited suitable detergent characteristics with a high potential to be used as a cleansing agent for textile applications, such as high pH value (10.1), suitable foaming of 1.5 cm and a critical micelle concentration of nearly 0.12 g mL⁻¹. In addition, SNO showed a moderate bactericidal activity against Escherichia coli and bacteriostatic activity against Staphylococcus aureus, both common nosocomial pathogens. Therefore, SNO has a good potential to be used in medical textile applications due to its detergent and bactericidal properties. Finally, an economical overview of the SNO production process was assessed, underscoring its viability.
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