
Laundry detergents have existed for many centuries. The first evidence of soap usage for textile cleaning and disinfection date as back as the Babylonians; however, it was not until the shortage of fats derived from WWI that humanity produced the first synthetic detergent. Laundry detergents have developed a lot since then and many formats and varieties can be found nowadays in which hazardous chemicals and high temperature are required to achieve deep cleaning and disinfecting. Consequently, an increasing need for greener processes, together with the raising awareness of disinfection derived from the COVID-19 pandemic have created a new necessity: laundry detergents with strong disinfecting capacity at low temperatures and short washing cycles. The OXIPRO project aims to use the power of enzymes to generate a laundry detergent with antimicrobial properties. Bioprospecting and computational tools are used to find and optimize new and underexploited enzymes from fungi and bacteria. The strategy consists of a cascade reaction of alcohol oxidases that generate hydrogen peroxide and a lactoperoxidase, capable of generating powerful disinfecting molecules in the presence of the produced hydrogen peroxide. This cascade reaction generates hydrogen peroxide and hypothiocyanite, both well-known antimicrobials found and synthetized in the human body. Altogether, this strategy will allow the eradication of virulent microorganisms during the wash, favoring low temperature washing cycles and avoiding the release of hazardous chemicals.
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