Surfactant formulations: Ensuring safe preservation against microbial contamination while meeting ever-increasing market demands and product expectations

Surfactant formulations must demonstrate safe and reliable preservation against microbial contamination over the entire product lifespan. To address evolving market demands, formulators increasingly turn to multifunctional ingredients as elements of a preservation strategy based on the hurdle technology approach. Multifunctionals such as medium-chain terminal diols (MCTDs) and chelating agents help overcome challenges associated with organic acid and aromatic alcohol preservatives. The physicochemical interactions between surfactants and multifunctionals must be carefully considered from the onset of formulation design to ensure that product performance and preservation requirements are achieved. So-called “drop-in” additions of multifunctionals to existing surfactant formulations should be avoided; instead, a holistic approach that considers the multifunctional ingredients as components of the surfactant system should be employed.