Novel Chelant Design for Improving Cleaning Performance and Sustainability of Consumer Goods

Chelants are a fundamental ingredient in cleaning products for providing strong detergency but existing materials do not meet all of the properties that are currently desired (e.g., strong performance, biodegradable, nil-phosphorus, non-hazardous). The need for innovation in the field of metal control has become crucial in recent years as P&G strive to replace the 'classic chelants' in Fabric Care formulations with other molecular materials that have improved environmental profiles. The 'green' chelants which are currently available provide modest performance benefits, and with some disadvantages relative to conventionally used materials such as EDTA.

The student, Lucy Woods, will design and synthesise small molecules based on siderophores. They are chelating molecules that have evolved in nature to help organisms meet their needs for metal ions, in particular iron, which is essential to all life forms. The key factors enabling strong performance will be modelled and used to inform the molecular design. In approaching the molecular design, the aim will be to preserve those molecular properties that provide strong metal-binding, while removing the functional groups which are involved in the bacterial cell uptake mechanisms. The lead candidates will be synthesised and screened for performance in P&G formulations, correlating the performance with properties such as metal ion affinity and lipophilicity, ultimately building up a detailed structure-activity relationship. These principal tasks will be informed by complementary molecular modelling and analytical characterisation.

Time on the project will be split between the University (designing and synthesising novel chelants) and P&G (applying the novel chelants in P&G performance methods).