(Press-News.org) In a new approach for tapping biomass as a sustainable raw material, scientists are reporting use of a Nobel-Prize-winning technology to transform plant "essential oils" — substances with the characteristic fragrance of the plant — into high-value ingredients for sunscreens, perfumes and other personal care products. The report on the approach, which could open up new economic opportunities for tropical countries that grow such plants, appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Deryn Fogg, Eduardo dos Santos and colleagues explain that breaking down plant material into ingredients for making commercial products is getting much attention as a sustainable substitute for raw materials now obtained from petroleum. They decided to test a complementary approach, which involves enhancing the complexity of substances found naturally in plants in ways that form antioxidants and other components of cosmetics and perfumes. Current methods for making some of these ingredients from plants are time-consuming, costly and wasteful. That's why the scientists turned to "metathesis" — topic of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — to make personal care product ingredients from plant essential oils.
They describe use of metathesis in the laboratory to transform compounds in essential oils into highly valuable personal care product ingredients. "These methodologies offer the potential for economic expansion via the sustainable cultivation and elaboration of high-return source species in the tropical countries that represent the major producers of essential oils," say the researchers.
###
The authors acknowledge funding from NSERC (Canada) and CNPq (Brazil).
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Follow us: Twitter | Facebook
New twist on using biomass for perfume, cosmetic, personal care products
2012-12-12
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New geometries: Researchers create new shapes of artificial microcompartments
2012-12-12
In nature, biological functions are often carried out in tiny protective shells known as microcompartments, structures that provide home to enzymes that convert carbon dioxide into energy in plant cells and to viruses that replicate once they enter the cell.
Most of these shells buckle into an icosahedron shape, forming 20 sides that allow for high interface with their surroundings. But some shells — such as those found in the single-celled Archaea or simple, salt-loving organisms called halophiles —break into triangles, squares, or non-symmetrical geometries. While these ...
Scientists train honey bees to stick out their tongues
2012-12-12
Honey bees are a highly organized, social species, as demonstrated by their complex colonies and the geometric structure of their hives. For hive building, the honey bee strongly relies on its tactile sense, and a new video-article in JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) illustrates a novel tactile conditioning experiment using honey bees. The technique, presented by the lab of Dr. Volker Dürr of Bielefeld University, trains honey bees to stick out their tongues when their antennae touch an object. This procedure allows researchers to analyze how changes in antennal ...
A second ascent of chemistry's Mt. Everest
2012-12-12
In science's equivalent of ascending Mt. Everest, researchers are reporting success in one of the most difficult challenges in synthetic chemistry — a field in which scientists reproduce natural and other substances from jars of chemicals in a lab. The feat, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, involved synthesis of a rare substance with promising in vitro anti-cancer effects found naturally in tiny amounts in a Chinese medicinal herb.
Samuel J. Danishefsky and Feng Peng explain that maoecrystal V occurs naturally in a plant growing in China's Yunnan ...
Will climate change cause water conflict?
2012-12-12
International researchers from 14 institutions met in Nicosia (Cyprus) on the 10th and 11th of December to present and debate the results of studies on water, conflict and security conducted in the past three years in a variety of locations in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Sahel under the CLICO research project. The CLICO project explored the social dimensions of climate change and in particular, conflicts related to water, and the threats this may pose for national and human security. The project was led by the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) ...
Relocating elephants fails to decrease human–wildlife conflict
2012-12-12
Human–elephant conflict in Sri Lanka kills more than 70 humans and 200 Asian elephants every year. One of the most common tools in combating these conflicts is moving the elephants into ranges away from humans, often into national parks. This is done in hopes of avoiding problems that include elephants raiding crops, breaking into homes and injuring or killing people.
But according to a new study to be published Dec. 7 in PLOS ONE by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the Centre for Conservation and Research in Sri Lanka and the Department of Wildlife Conservation ...
Cane toads can be stopped
2012-12-12
It may be possible to stop the spread of can toads into new areas of Australia according to new research published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
One of the lead authors of the study, James Cook University's Dr Ben Phillips, said that their work, which involved an international team of scientists, showed that artificial waterbodies installed by graziers acted as critical stepping-stones for the toad invasion.
"By removing these waterbodies in key locations it is possible to halt the spread of toads," he said.
Cane toads are currently spreading into the vast ...
Emerging virus in raccoons may provide cancer clues
2012-12-12
Rare brain tumors emerging among raccoons in Northern California and Oregon may be linked to a previously unidentified virus discovered by a team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of California, Davis. Their findings, published today in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, could lead to a better understanding of how viruses can cause cancer in animals and humans.
Necropsies conducted since March 2010 by scientists at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and UC Davis-led California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory found brain tumors ...
Researchers find algal ancestor is key to how deadly pathogens proliferate
2012-12-12
Long ago, when life on our planet was in its infancy, a group of small single-celled algae floating in the vast prehistoric ocean swam freely by beating whip-like tails, called flagella. It's a relatively unremarkable tale, except that now, over 800 million years later, these organisms have evolved into parasites that threaten human health, and their algal past in the ocean may be the key to stopping them.
The organisms are called Apicomplexa, but are better known as the parasites that cause malaria and toxoplasmosis—serious diseases that infect millions of people every ...
New method quantifies uncertainty in estimates of child mortality rates
2012-12-12
Measures of uncertainty should be taken into account when estimating progress towards Millennium Development Goal 4 (to reduce the mortality rate of children under 5 years by two thirds from the 1990 level by 2015) in order to give more accurate assessments of countries' progress, according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine.
Leontine Alkema and Jin Rou New from the National University of Singapore used a statistical method called bootstrapping to calculate uncertainty intervals for the estimates of mortality rates in children aged under 5 years and the ...
Prevalence of visual impairment in US increases
2012-12-12
CHICAGO – The prevalence of nonrefractive visual impairment (not due to need for glasses) in the U.S. has increased significantly in recent years, which may be partly related to a higher prevalence of diabetes, an associated risk factor, according to a study in the December 12 issue of JAMA.
"It is estimated that more than 14 million individuals in the United States aged 12 years and older are visually impaired ( END ...