As biofuels occupies a larger and larger portion of our planet’s total fuel consumption, vast amounts of biomass will be converted into more useful forms (e.g. biodiesel). What is often missed is that biomass can contain some interesting and valuable phytochemicals, like flavonoids and saponins.

We recently visited the Biological Engineering department at the University of Arkansas (UARK) to enhance the detection capabilities of their CPC system with an ELSD.  During our visit we learned that this group, led by Dr. Danielle Julie Carrier, is laying the groundwork to develop a process that could be seamlessly integrated into the current biochemical refineries.  The production of vegetable oils (the main component of biodiesel) leaves behind large quantities of potentially useful phytochemicals, many possessing valuable properties such as antioxidant or antimicrobial activity.  These chemicals could be easily extracted with pressurized hot water prior to the biofuel conversion process.

As an early adopter of countercurrent chromatography to this industry, Dr. Carrier’s group is using their CPC as an isolation/purification tool for investigating these valuable compounds.  She says quite simply, “CCC technology is allowing us to develop novel processing methods. ”

CPC is a wonderful tool for isolating compounds from a crude plant extract.  In a single run, with a crude extract solution from Milk thistle seeds, I was able to purify silydianin (a flavonolingan) up to 94.6% purity.  Another great feature is that since there is no solid stationary phase, the solvent system of the CPC can be modified in order to separate almost any compound.

There is immeasurable value in industrial waste streams, and CCC is likely to be the single most valuable tool for exploiting them.