Dr Chadwick and I have been preparing material for two online presentations. Next Thursday the 14th we will present “Introduction to Countercurrent Chromatography,” at noon and “Choosing CCC Solvent Systems,” at one. Both webinars will consist of thirty minute presentations, after which Dr. Chadwick will be available for questions. If you are interested please send me an e-mail.
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.
Before we can use petroleum to power our transportation or produce products such as plastic, pesticides and pharmaceuticals, we have to get that black gold out of the ground and refine it. Measuring trace elements in the oil is critical to downstream processes because some trace elements interfere with fluid catalytic cracking most importantly nickel and vanadium (from Wikipedia).
According to Maryutina et al. current methods for oil analysis require time consuming sample preparation and have poor detection limits as well as a restricted number of elements that can be tested for at one time. “CCC gives a unique possibility of direct isolation and pre-concentration (without additional sample prep) of trace elements from oil.” (Maryutina et al) This is just one example of the benefit of CCC’s ability to handle raw samples! Believe it or not, crude oil can actually be used as a mobile phase in CCC.
Check out their paper Counter-current chromatography for oil analysis: Retention features and kinetic effects