Sustainable extraction technology

Asynt reports how sustainable cosmetics innovator, Keracol, is using its DrySyn heating blocks and CondenSyn air condensers in the development and scale-up of its Dr Craft Mandarin green beauty product range.

Keracol is a sustainable cosmetics spin-out company born from over 15 years of scientific research between Professor Chris Rayner and Professor Richard Blackburn of the University of Leeds, UK. The company breathes new life into otherwise unused or under-researched natural ingredients with an emphasis on waste fruit and vegetable materials from the food industry, paired with its innovative and sustainable extraction processes, to develop the “Dr Craft” safe cosmetic actives with scientifically proven results.

Supported by an in-depth knowledge of cosmetic benefits at a chemical level, Dr Craft skincare products are not only better for the environment, but safer for consumers. Recently the company launched its award-winning Mandarin Range based on upcycling mandarin peels as part of a collaborative research project to eliminate waste and improve food safety. The peels are rich in the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and wound healing actives, narirutin and hesperidin, making them ideal for inclusion in skin treatments.

Dr Kristina Hetherington, senior scientist at Keracol said: “Finding alternative ways to reduce water consumption and conserve energy by utilising laboratory equipment such as the DrySyn heating blocks and CondenSyn air condensers is essential to our development of green beauty products. Working with different food waste requires researching and identifying the optimal conditions for extraction of specific actives and for this task we have standardised on Asynt DrySyn heating blocks, hotplate stirrers and CondenSyn waterless condensers as our ‘go to’ laboratory tools. The heating blocks and hotplate stirrers have proven to be highly reliable in reproducing the conditions for our world-first optimised extraction protocols. We rely on the waterless condensers heavily too as we always recycle our solvents. Crucially, when we scale-up our extraction process, the CondenSyn Maxi is an incredible tool that has ensured we recover an amazing 98% of the solvent which we recycle for subsequent extractions of each active material."

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