New American Chemical Society podcast: New twist on using biomass for perfume, cosmetic, personal-care products

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2013 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society’s (ACS’) award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series reports a new approach for tapping biomass as a sustainable raw material. The scientists transform plant “essential oils” — substances with the characteristic fragrance of the plant — into high-value ingredients for sunscreens, perfumes and other personal-care products. The approach also could open up new economic opportunities for tropical countries that grow such plants.

Based on a report by Deryn Fogg, Ph.D., Eduardo dos Santos, Ph.D., and colleagues in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from www.acs.org/globalchallenges.

In the new episode, Fogg explains that breaking down plant material into ingredients for making commercial products is getting much attention as a sustainable substitute for raw materials now obtained from petroleum. The researchers decided to test a different, complementary approach, which involves making substances found naturally in plants more complex. They do this in ways that form antioxidants and other components of cosmetics and perfumes. Current methods for making some of these ingredients from plants are time-consuming, costly and wasteful. That’s why the scientists turned to “metathesis” — the topic of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

They describe use of metathesis in the laboratory to transform compounds in essential oils into highly valuable personal-care product ingredients. “These methodologies offer the potential for economic expansion via the sustainable cultivation and elaboration of high-return source species in the tropical countries that represent the major producers of essential oils,” say the researchers.

Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions is a series of podcasts describing some of the 21^st century’s most daunting problems, and how cutting-edge research in chemistry matters in the quest for solutions. Global Challenges is the centerpiece in an alliance on sustainability between ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Global Challenges is a sweeping panorama of global challenges that includes dilemmas such as providing a hungry and thirsty world with ample supplies of safe food and clean water, developing alternatives to petroleum to fuel society, preserving the environment and ensuring a sustainable future for our children and improving human health.

For more entertaining, informative science videos and podcasts from the ACS Office of Public Affairs, view Prized Science, Spellbound, Science Elements and Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions.

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