This research group was established in June 2002 within the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Granada. Since its creation, it has been working on the formulation of specific detergents for different types of dirt, optimizing cleaning efficiency and minimizing environmental impact. The lines of work have covered the physicochemical and ecotoxicological characterization of surfactants and their mixtures, the study of the activity and stability of free and immobilized enzymes in the presence of surfactants and the analysis of their effectiveness in removing dirt, mainly agri-food type.
It is a consolidated group, which works in collaboration with the RNM-332 group with the common objective of obtaining highly efficient detergent formulations with low environmental impact.
The interests of the group at present are the analysis and improvement of washing processes on hard surfaces, the encapsulation of additives to include them in detergent formulations; the analysis of dermal irritability of compounds likely to be in contact with the skin; the study of the interaction between nanoparticles/surfactants and microplastics/surfactants in order to find out the fate of these emerging contaminants and the use of ozone for cleaning and disinfection, as well as improving the degradation of washing water.