Many Vietnamese herbs are being extracted with new technology by scientists to produce valuable compounds to make pharmaceutical cosmetics for health care.
At the workshop "Research on the application of Vietnamese plant resources in environmental technology and pharmaceutical cosmetics" organized by the Vietnam - Korea Institute of Science and Technology (VKIST) in collaboration with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) on July 24, some new research results were shared.
Dr. Vu Duc Loi, Deputy Director in charge of VKIST, said that VKIST is focusing on two research areas related to Vietnam's flora, including environmental technology and pharmaceutical cosmetics.
One of them is the project to produce activated carbon from Vietnamese herbal sources and apply it in the production of pharmaceutical cosmetics. Dr. Mai Thi Nga, a researcher at VKIST, said that this is the first study in Vietnam on activated carbon using raw materials from the Guot tree, a fern species that is very common in mountainous areas.
According to Dr. Nga, the research was conducted by her and her colleagues since 2018. The high carbon content in the guot tree is mainly stable carbon that is difficult to decompose and does not contain many impurities, especially toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and chromium. The research team used steam activation technology combined with CO2 gas flow to create activated carbon material with high surface area. "This technology creates activated carbon that is cheap, safe and environmentally friendly," said Dr. Nga, the project received two patents from the Vietnam Intellectual Property Office and an award from the US Embassy.
Dr. Mai Thi Nga at VKIST laboratory. Photo: NVCC
Dr. Nga said that the project is implementing the application of activated carbon combined with natural herbs to prepare a number of products such as toothpaste, activated carbon masks... Some initial results show that the toothpaste has the ability to kill Streptococcus mutans bacteria (93%) and Porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria (99.8%).
Dr. Le Dang Quang, Institute of Tropical Technology, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) introduced supercritical CO2 extraction technology. His research team is applying this technology to ginger, jasmine, grapefruit flowers, vetiver grass and agarwood, obtaining essential oil with significantly higher yield than conventional extractions.
According to Mr. Quang, with organic solvents, solvents from CO2, water are environmentally friendly and cheap, and have advantages such as higher diffusion speed, lower viscosity, easy to control solubility and selectivity by adjusting pressure and temperature. The group has optimized the CO2 extraction process, introducing the SFT-250 supercritical fluid extraction device with a 2-liter extraction tank, which can be applied to many herbs.
From Korea, Dr. Lee Jae Wook, a scientist at KIST, shared his experience in developing natural and active products from gac fruit, a medicinal plant in Vietnam. He said that gac contains many active ingredients, including carotenoids and compounds with antioxidant properties. Scientists at KIST are studying the mechanism of gac extract to develop products for vision enhancement and skin care applications.
Dr. Lee Jae Wook shares research results at the conference. Photo: VKIST
Vietnam has rich and diverse plant resources, which have been studied in many different fields. Of the more than 12,000 species of Vietnam's flora, more than 5,000 are used as medicine. Vietnam exports many medicinal herbs such as cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, turmeric, etc. The total export value of cinnamon and star anise is constantly increasing, reaching 276 million USD in 2022. However, this figure is still small compared to the market share of medicinal herbs worldwide. Dr. Vu Duc Loi said that Vietnam has a lot of potential and advantages to develop medicinal herbs into an economic sector. "Through research, VKIST strives to approach the potential market of medicinal herbs and environmental technology, hoping to connect technological solutions to the market," said Mr. Loi.
Nhu Quynh
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