Microbial biosurfactants are surface-active molecules that are naturally produced by a range of microorganisms. They have certain advantages over chemical surfactants, such as lower toxicity, higher biodegradability, anti-tumor, and anti-microbial properties. Sophorolipids (SLs) in particular are one of the most promising biosurfactants, as they hold the largest share of the biosurfactant market. Currently, researchers are developing novel approaches for SL production that utilize renewable feedstocks and advanced separation technologies. However, challenges still exist regarding consumption of materials, enzymes, and electricity, that are primarily fossil based. Researchers lack a clear understanding of the associated environmental impacts. It is imperative to quantify and optimize the environmental impacts associated with this emerging technology very early in its design phase to guide a sustainable scale-up. It is necessary to take a collaborative perspective, wherein life cycle assessment (LCA) experts work with experimentalists, to quantify environmental impacts and provide recommendations for improvements in the novel waste-derived SL production pathways. Studies that have analyzed the environmental sustainability of microbial biosurfactant production are very scarce in literature. Hence, in this work, we explore the possibility of applying LCA to evaluate the environmental sustainability of SL production. A dynamic LCA (dLCA) framework that quantifies the environmental impacts of a process in an iterative manner, is proposed and applied to evaluate SL production. The first traversal of the dLCA was associated with the selection of an optimal feedstock, and results identified food waste as a promising feedstock. The second traversal compared fermentation coupled with alternative separation techniques, and highlighted that the fed-batch fermentation of food waste integrated with the in-situ separation technique resulted in less environmental impacts. These results will guide experimentalists to further optimize those processes, and improve the environmental sustainability of SL production. Resultant datasets can be iteratively used in subsequent traversals to account for technological changes and mitigate the corresponding impacts before scaling up.

微生物生物表面活性剂是由一系列微生物自然产生的表面活性分子。它们比化学表面活性剂具有某些优势，例如较低的毒性，较高的生物降解性，抗肿瘤和抗微生物特性。槐糖脂（SLs）特别是最有前途的生物表面活性剂之一，因为它们在生物表面活性剂市场上占有最大的份额。当前，研究人员正在开发利用可再生原料和先进分离技术的新型SL生产方法。然而，在主要基于化石的材料，酶和电的消耗方面仍然存在挑战。研究人员对相关的环境影响缺乏清晰的了解。必须在设计阶段的早期就量化和优化与该新兴技术相关的环境影响，以指导可持续的规模扩大。必须采取协作的观点，其中生命周期评估（LCA）专家与实验人员一起工作，以量化环境影响并为改进新的源自废物的SL生产途径提供建议。分析微生物生物表面活性剂生产的环境可持续性的研究在文献中很少。因此，在这项工作中，我们探索了应用LCA评估SL生产环境可持续性的可能性。提出了动态LCA（dLCA）框架，该框架以迭代方式量化过程的环境影响，并将其应用于评估SL生产。dLCA的第一次遍历与最佳原料的选择有关，结果确定了食物垃圾是一种有前途的原料。第二次遍历比较了发酵与替代分离技术，并强调了将食物残渣的分批补料发酵与原位分离技术对环境的影响较小。这些结果将指导实验人员进一步优化这些过程，并提高SL生产的环境可持续性。可以在后续遍历中迭代使用结果数据集，以说明技术变化并在扩大规模之前减轻相应的影响。