Surfactants are widely used in processes involving interfacial phenomena. As by application of surfactants, processes may be simplified, speeded-up, or economized, they are a key ingredient of many product formulations (detergents, cutting oils, etc).Hence, they are present in effluents from many sources, such as detergent processing, rolling mills, laundry wastes, electroplating, aircraft maintenance and micellar enhanced separations. All of these applications provide a large volume of waste streams, and surfactant removal may be necessary for environmental and economic reasons.

Nowadays, surfactants are also used to enhance the performance of many separation processes, such as distillation, absorption, extraction, flotation, ultrafiltration, etc. Surfactant-based separations have the advantage of using a green separating agent and low energy requirements.