Technology presents potential for industry, in the purification and concentration of bioactive compounds with high added value, for the production of extracts and pure chemical substances or for bioprospecting
The extraction of bioactive compounds – a source of a wide range of chemical substances with interesting properties for society, ranging from disease prevention to solving engineering problems – can be much more efficient than it is today. This is because researchers from the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA) and the Faculty of Food Engineering (FEA) at Unicamp developed a two-dimensional system that integrates several stages of the process in the same equipment.
The advanced and ultra-fast system is capable of extracting, fractionating and analyzing complex samples, whether solid or liquid, to determine natural compounds in an automated way and with real-time monitoring. “The system represents a major advance for Unicamp. This is a pilot plant that is much more complex than what currently exists on the market”, comments professor Tânia Forster, who participated in the invention.
The patent application for the technology was filed with the support of Inova Unicamp at the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and is available for licensing by interested companies and institutions. The new equipment was built with funding from Fapesp's Young Researcher Project – a type of research support that seeks to encourage new groups of researchers or new lines of research – and is already being used in several scientific works at the University. The research also yielded scientific articles, one of which was recently published in the magazine Analytica Chimica Acta.
Various applications
The two-dimensional system was originally designed to be used on a laboratory scale to support teaching and research at Unicamp. But the technology can also be explored for different applications. It presents great potential for industry, in the purification and concentration of bioactive compounds with high added value, for the production of extracts and pure chemical substances or for bioprospecting – an effort undertaken in the search for new products or processes based on local biodiversity.
The analysis of chemical compounds can be carried out on different types of samples such as food, soil, industrial waste, fluids and animal tissues, among others. “We are integrating detection, analysis and separation within a super automated and complex unit that no one has ever done. We were recently at a supercritical technology conference and we didn't see anything like that. It’s a very impressive technology”, summarizes Forster about the new equipment in use at Unicamp.
Another field of research that can benefit from the invention is biorefinery. Giving more noble and technological destinations to waste from the food and beverage industry. The idea is, in the near future, to integrate the system so that after extracting the bioactive compounds, the solid waste is still reused for the production of bioenergy.
Read article in full published on the Unicamp Innovation Agency website.
