ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization, through its members, it brings together experts to share knowledge and develop voluntary, consensus-based, market relevant International Standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges. ISO/TC91was created in 1958, which scope is “Standardization in the field of surface active agents and mixtures containing one or more surface active agents with or without other conventional components of soap and detergent formulations.” Since its establishment, TC91 has been publishing 83 ISO standards and there are 3 ISO standards under development. TC91 consists of Chairperson, Secretary, two ISO Technical program managers, 14 Participating members, 39 Observing members and 13 liaison committees and organizations. There are five working groups (WG) under TC91 actively developing new standards and other projects. In this review, outline of TC91 (Surface active agents) including scope and Strategic Business Plan and newly developed WG for the long strategy planning including reestablishment of vocabulary standard for surfactants relating to the future prospects are introduced in relation to JISC and JOCS activities in Standardization of Surfactants.

Global population growth and economic development are also predicted to affect the balance of supply and demand for detergents which have contributed to the development of the clean and comfortable life. The current way to use surfactants could lead to the short of supply in the future and raise the price of surfactants and detergents. In order for people all over the world to sustain a comfortable life in the future, the (1) bio-based, (2) excellently water-soluble, and (3) highly surface active surfactants might be required as sustainable ones. Because, in particular, (2) and (3) are generally considered to be properties that are not compatible with each other, the achievement of “sustainable surfactant” has been regarded to be very difficult. Last year, we succeeded in producing bio-based internal olefin sulfonate salt (Bio IOS) industrially, which can satisfy the above three requirements at a high level and started actual use as a main surfactant of the laundry detergents. Moreover, Bio-IOS can also be produced from the surplus C16 and C18 vegetable oils that have been generally considered unsuitable as a raw material for surfactants due to decreased water solubility. Bio-IOS should be expected as a sustainable anionic surfactant.

Amino acids are essential for maintaining life and, as such, are safe to the environment and humans. Accordingly, they have been used as components in a variety of functional materials. Amino-acid-type surfactants are one such material and are obtained by the introduction of an alkyl chain to an amino acid. Among the amino-acid-type surfactants, the most representative are N-acyl-amino-acidtype surfactants, which have good foaming properties, are less sensitive to hard water than soap, are nonirritating to the skin, and have good antibacterial activity and biodegradability. Accordingly, they are widely used in cosmetics, personal hygiene products, and food formulations. In this review, we report the air/water interfacial adsorption behavior and micelle properties in alkaline solution of a novel hydroxy-group-containing amino-acid-type surfactant, N-alkanoyl-N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-β-alanine and compare it to that of a conventional amino-acid-type surfactant without a hydroxy group, N-dodecanoylN-methyl-β-alanine.

Amphiphilic compounds that contain both hydrophobic tails and hydrophilic heads can assemble in suitable media such as water. Recently, supramolecular gels of amphiphiles have attracted much attention in applications for manipulation of nanomaterials. These lamellar-structured gel assemblies contributes to the capture of various functional materials that exhibit strong affinity toward the gelators. This unique property can also be utilized in recovery systems of nanomaterials, such as purification of heavy metal resources or treatment of waste water. Interestingly, amphiphilic gels are often able to undergo a sol-gel transition by external stimuli, and it is also speculated that they allow reversible manipulation of the recovery of nanomaterials. In this paper, the pH-induced removal and recovery of nanomaterials was introduced, such as noble-metal nanoparticles and organic dyes, using a pH-responsive amphiphiles, CnCA. CnCA formed gel-like assemblies at around isoelectric point, due to the interactions between amino moieties and carboxyl groups. The assemblies successfully incorporate various nanomaterials throughout sol-gel transition and remove them from the aqueous suspension.