
Procter & Gamble, in collaboration with the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), is working to make household soaps and detergents safer for sensitive surfaces like the eyes. By using one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, they are addressing issues like eye irritation caused by soap.
According to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory release, P&G, led by Dilnoza Amirkulova, chose computational predictions over traditional testing to identify which surfactants in cleaners can cause eye irritation. "We need to understand which surfactants in cleaners can cause eye irritation to ensure our products are safe," Amirkulova explained, emphasizing the need for a digital approach. This method avoids the use of human or animal testing.
The research was conducted using the Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. The supercomputer allowed the team to simulate the corneal epithelium and model how different surfactants affect this protective layer of the eye, providing results much faster than traditional experiments.
P&G's efforts align with their Ambition 2040 initiative, which aims to reduce plastic and paper packaging. The research shows that it's possible to improve product concentration while reducing the disruption to the eye membrane. "The simulations showed us for the first time that we can potentially double surfactant concentration without doubling the disruption to the outer eye membrane," Amirkulova said in the same release.
These findings suggest that gentler surfactants could be introduced without sacrificing effectiveness. As the results are prepared for publication, they could lead to changes in P&G's products and the wider industry. The next step is to enhance the simulations with more biological data from the human eye, and P&G plans to use these insights to create tools that improve consumer safety.