A Review on the Biosurfactants: Characteriszation and Applications

In recent years, with the industrialization of societies, population growth, and pollution around the world, the tendency to the use of biosurfactants has increased.Microorganisms produce a wide range of surface-active compounds called biosurfactants, which are amphiphilic compounds with hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails. These compounds are mainly classified according to their molecular weight, physico-chemical properties, and microbial origin. Low molecular weight biosurfactants reduce the surface tension of water/air or water/oil, while bioemulsifier with high molecular weight are effective in stabilizing emulsions. Biosurfactants,due to their properties and potential advantages over chemical counterparts such as low toxicity, high biodegradability, critical micelle low concentration and tolerance of temperature, ionic strength and pH, are widely used in various industries such as petroleum, food, medicine, cosmetics, detergent, ariculture and environmental bioremediation. However, due to the high cost of production, their large-scale production and applications are limited. That's why industries and researchers are looking formethods such as using low-cost substrates such as molasses, vegetable oils, and whey to reduce the high cost of these green products in the industrial scale. In this study, several important aspects of biosurfactants, such as classification, characteristics, factors affecting production, evaluation indicators and test methods, and their application in various industries have been discussed.