Cleaning products are essential to daily life, serving as the first line of defense in maintaining hygiene, safeguarding our health, and keeping our bodies, clothing, and living spaces free from harmful contaminants. Over the past decade, cleaning products have undergone a revolutionary shift towards greener solutions ranging from carbon-neutral surfactants, materials with lower impact on the environment, and formulations that allow cleaning to occur with less energy demand.
Revolutionizing these products requires input from many branches of science including molecular modeling, raw material synthesis and engineering, and formulating the finished product with long shelf-stability and high efficacy; every shift towards greener materials propagates necessary changes throughout the entire value chain.
We envision using this symposium to share the perspectives from academia and industry to highlight the opportunities, challenges, and scientific developments for cleaning products including shampoos, laundry detergents, and other household cleaning products. Bringing new materials to commercialization touches on many of the 17 topics highlighted by the United Nations’ 2015 call to action to protect the planet by 2030: good health & well-being, responsible consumption & production, climate action, life below water, and most importantly, a partnership path to achieve these goals. This partnership reflects crossing boundaries of government, public, and private, but also challenges us as scientists and innovators to identify collaborative approaches to tackling today’s biggest challenges.