Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Separation resins refer to spherical synthetic polymers characterized by customizable attributes such as particle size, pore structure, surface area, and material chemistry. Their application involves selectively and efficiently binding target molecules, typically in aqueous solutions. The application of these separation resins, ranging from large-scale processing to small-scale product quality analysis, is already established in the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industry. This work focuses on exploring new opportunities to apply such separation resins to a variety of plant extracts. Redstone Separation AB possesses an extensive library of novel separation resin types that might be suitable for addressing quality challenges in non-aqueous plant extracts, such as chlorophyll pigments in alcoholic plant leaf extracts, wax in citrus peel oil, and rancid compounds in oxidized linseed oil. In this work, the screening of separation resins from Redstone Separation AB was conducted with the objective of removing undesired compounds from the plant extracts.
The behavioral characteristics of the separation resins, such as targeting specificity, and the optimal application methods were examined. One of the outcomes was the identification of a hydrophobic reversed phase resin that efficiently removed chlorophyll pigments from a plant leaf extract solution by up to 90%. This resin also demonstrated the possibility of multiple uses through regeneration with pure acetone. Additionally, certain weak anion exchange resins were found to influence the crystallization behavior of citrus oil wax, which may be attributed to their ability to reduce fatty acid content in orange peel oil. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that medium hydrophobicity and weak anion exchange resins were effective in reducing aldehyde compounds in oxidized linseed oil.