Resources, Conservation and Recycling 25 (1999) 61 – 78 Surfactant production and use in Germany: resource requirements and CO 2 emissions M.K. Patel a, *, A. Theiß b , E. Worrell c a Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innoation Research (ISI), Breslauer Str. 48, D-76139 Karlsruhe, Germany b Uniersity of Siegen, Siegen, Germany c Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), EAP-MS 90 -4000, 1, Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Accepted 12 August 1998 Abstract Surfactants (surface-active agents) can be derived from both petrochemical feedstocks and renewable resources (e.g. oleochemicals). Renewable resources have the advantage that they contribute less to the greenhouse effect if harvested and grown sustainably. When comparing the contribution to the greenhouse effect, the life-cycle of the product should be analysed, covering the CO 2 emissions from production, use and degradation after disposal. In this paper, the use phase is only included for washing and cleaning agents since it is practically impossible to cover all the utilization processes for surfactants. At present, biomass-derived raw materials account for about one third of the material feedstocks for surfactant production in Germany. Within this partial life-cycle inventory, it was calculated that fossil CO 2 emissions of the commercially most important surfactants produced in Germany amounted to 1.5 Mt in 1996 (versus total chemical industry emissions of 125 Mt, including the equivalents of feedstock energy). Already today, the production of oleochemical feed- stocks avoids the emission of 0.35 Mt of fossil CO 2 p.a. (1996). Total substitution of oleochemical surfactants for petrochemical surfactants would enable a further reduction of 34%, reducing absolute emissions to 0.99 Mt. This is an overestimation of today’s technical potential, but it might be attainable in the longer term. For surfactant applications in laundry detergents, lowering wash temperatures is also an interesting strategy to reduce CO 2 emissions. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Surfactants; Material flow analysis; CO 2 emissions; Emission reduction; Life-cycle * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 721 6809256; fax: +49 721 6809272; e-mail: MP@isi.fhg.de 0921-3449/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII S0921-3449(98)00063-9