Finnish scientists turn over a new leaf

Record ID: 163539

  • Title: Finnish scientists turn over a new leaf
  • Date: 10th January 2017
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (DECEMBER 20, 2016) (REUTERS) LEAVES ON THE GROUND VARIOUS OF LEAVES BIRD IN A TREE
  • Embargoed: 25th January 2017 10:19
  • Keywords: leaf leaves Autumn Espoo Finland biomass Sami Alakurtti VTT
  • Location: ESPOO, FINLAND / LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
  • City: ESPOO, FINLAND / LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
  • Country: Finland
  • Topics: Science
  • Reuters ID: LVA0015YHYGD7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Autumn leaves contain a range of substances such as pigments, carbohydrates, proteins and compounds that inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria.
    Instead of leaving the leaves on the ground, composting or burning them, scientists at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland are developing leaf-processing technologies, with the aim of them being used by the cosmetics, textile and food industries in the future.
    Autumn leaves get their colour from orange and yellow organic fat-soluble pigments - carotenoids - and red vacuolar pigments - anthocyanins. As well as pigments, autumn leaves contain compounds such as phenols, lignin, carbohydrates and protein.
    In a process developed by VTT in laboratory experiments, leaves are gathered, dried and ground and compounds are extracted.
    "In this pilot extraction we feed the leaves into a reactor, then we add the solvent and we use this reactor as a mixer and after two hours the pigments are dissolved to the solution and after that we pump the mixture to the separation unit where we separate the insoluble biomass and leaves and the solution included the pigments," explained VTT scientist Sami Alakurtti.
    "After we get the solution with the pigments we still have to concentrate it and we get the concentrated solvent which we deliver for further processing," he added.
    VTT senior scientist Liisa Nohynek said that the methods developed by VTT could in the future be used in the textile and cosmetic industries, moving away from synthetic components.
    "So far these natural colourants are taken, for example, from carrots and algae and then microbes but this is a new kind of source of these pigments. They are also made synthetically nowadays, so it's more and more a way to get rid of the synthetic components and to use these natural ones," she said.
    According to VTT, the environmental friendliness of the overall process has been a priority.
    "Those pigments they are really wanted nowadays because they are natural pigments. They could be used for colouring textiles, in cosmetics and also if we can pass the test for toxicity, then they could be even used for food, human food," she said.
    Residual biomass, which remains after extraction, is high in nutrients and suitable for garden soil improvements and, for example, for growing mushrooms. In addition, it can also be further processed into compounds that inhibit the growth of harmful microbes, possibly making it suitable for cosmetic and hygiene products.
    In the future, other applications could be developed based on compounds in autumn leaves, such as food colouring and preservatives and nutritional supplements.
    In addition, these colourants could be used to improve the nutritional properties of edible plant cells under development at VTT.
    "In this autumn leaf project the idea is that after we have been doing this pilot scale extraction so we have the extract containing the valuable compounds of autumn leaves so we are feeding those valuable compounds to these plant cell cultures and since they already have this biosynthetic capacity so they can use these as a precursor and make new valuable compounds but also of course because these compounds have some nutritional value so we can also increase the nutritional value of these plant cell cultures and that's sort of heading far to the future because we aim to develop these plant cell cultures as food," said VTT scientist Anneli Ritala.
    According to VTT, new bioactive compounds for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries could be obtained by using biotechnological methods to modify pigments.
    Also, the carbohydrates from the extraction residue could be used to produce protein-rich feed for livestock and protein supplements for people.
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