Vegetable Extracts May Sub for Reagents

U.S. and Brazilian scientists say they’ve discovered chemists on tight budgets in developing countries might use vegetable extracts for reagents.

Geoffrey Cordell at the University of Illinois-Chicago and colleagues in Brazil have found extracts of potatoes, celery, eggplant, carrot, cassava, horseradish or an array of inexpensive and locally available vegetable products might become substitutes for costly reagents traditionally needed for chemical reactions.

The researchers say the high cost of imported reagents — substances used in chemical reactions — is a major problem for academic, chemical industry and pharmaceutical laboratories in developing nations.

The evaluation of locally available vegetables, fruits, common plants and natural waste products for a selection of standard organic chemical reactions of commercial significance could prove to be a very valuable economic endeavor, the researchers said. It may well offer new opportunities to expand the role of natural products as sustainable chemical reagents where high-cost, non-renewable reagents are presently used.

The review is scheduled for the March 23 issue of the Journal of Natural Products.