Novel Production Method for Plant Polyphenol from Livestock Excrement Using Subcritical Water Reaction [sic]

International Journal of Chemical Engineering
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 603957, 5 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2008/603957

Mayu Yamamoto, Yasuhiro Futamura, Kouki Fujioka, and Kenji Yamamoto

Department of Medical Ecology and Informatics, Research Institute, International Medical Center of Japan, Toyama 1-21-1, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan

Received 8 February 2008; Accepted 14 May 2008

Academic Editor: Ram B. Gupta

Copyright © 2008 Mayu Yamamoto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Plant polyphenol, including vanillin, is often used as the intermediate materials [sic] of the [sic] medicines and vanilla flavoring. In agriculture generally vanillin is produced from vanilla plant and in industry from lignin of disposed wood pulp. We have recently developed a method for the production of plant polyphenol with the excrement as a natural resource of lignin [sick], of the herbivorous animals, by using the [sic] subcritical water. The method for using the [sic] subcritical water is superior to that of the [sic] supercritical water because in the latter complete decomposition occurs. We have successfully produced the vanillin, protocatechuic acid, vanillic acid, and syringic acid in products [sic]. Our method is simpler and more efficient not only because it requires the shorter treatment time but also because it releases less amount [sic] of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Livestock excrement in Japan alone has been attained up to 40 000 tons per year, which recently has been one of the national major excrement management problems [sic]. Almost all farms are located close to residential areas in Japan, which enhances the hazard of water and soil pollution by the bad smell and by the onset of the potential infectious diseases. Therefore, we have to develop the method of disposing the excrement efficiently and safely.

[...]

The excrement of herbivorous animals, including cattle, goats, and horses (University of Miyazaki) and a carnivorous animal, tigers [sic] (Ueno Zoological Gardens, Tokyo, Japan), was used in our study. One-gram excrement and 4 mL were taken into the reactor, a stainless tube (SUS316) with the capacity of 5 mL. Then the reactor was heated up to the temperatures (and pressures) of 100°C, 150°C (0.6 MPa), 200°C (1.5 MPa), 250°C (3.9 MPa), and 300°C (8.3 MPa) each in the batch system. After treated for 60 minutes, the reactor was cooled down.

[...]

We have shown here in Figure 1(b) an HPLC profile of the products in the solution, which smells like coffee and cocoa powder, obtained from the cattle excrement at 200°C reaction.

[...]

Furthermore, the suitability, as food, of the excrement products obtained in our method is now being tested on animals [SICK! SICK! SICK!].

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