Role of micellar nanoreactors in organic chemistry: Green and synthetic surfactant review

Over the last few decades surface active compounds in aqueous media have proven to be the most benign alternative for overcoming the difficulty of insolubility and hydrolytic breakdown of numerous non-polar compounds in aqueous medium. Surfactants have the unique ability to from micelles when they reach the critical micelle concentration, form emulsion and also help in solubilizing immiscible organic reagents in organic reactions and hence are a valuable asset in organic chemistry. Biosurfactants or green surfactants are amphiphilic compounds, often extracellularly secreted by variety of plants, animals and microorganisms as a means of secondary metabolites by utilizing varieties of waste raw materials and are a promising candidate to replace harmful organic solvents as well as synthetically designed surfactants owing of their remarkable traits like low toxicity, functionality under adverse conditions, based on renewable ingredients, and biodegradable nature, there is growing interest in this issue. Numerous organic reactions in water are now possible without the use of rather toxic and non-biodegradable organic solvents, thanks to the advent of new and greener biosurfactants into the field of organic chemistry.