A new disinfectant made from sawdust and water can knock out more than 99 percent of some disease-causing microbes. That makes the sawdust mix a potential alternative to current germ-killing chemicals.

Figure 1: new disinfectant made from saw dust

Figure 1 shows that, Shicheng Zhang is an environmental engineer at Fudan University. It’s in Shanghai, China. Wood contains many molecules that look like phenol. They’re part of the large, branching molecules that make up plant cell walls. So, Zhang wondered if microbe-killing chemicals could be extracted from sawdust through a low-cost, low-energy process.

He and his colleagues cooked mixtures of water and sawdust for one hour. They heated this sawdust soup under pressure, then filtered it. Later, they tested how well the sawdust brew killed off microbes. [1]

Satinder Brar and Rama Pulicharla see a couple of benefits for the new disinfectant. These environmental engineers, who did not take part in the study, both work at York University in Toronto, Canada. One perk, they say, is that the sawdust mix costs little to make. Also, it has a simple recipe. No extra chemicals must be added to the sawdust and water.

Zhang’s team inspected the sawdust soup’s chemistry. It contains lots of phenol-like compounds. These likely snapped off big branching molecules in the wood’s cell walls. Pressure cooking the sawdust likely broke the wood’s molecular chains. That could have freed up microbe-killing molecules.

Peering at slain germs under a microscope revealed some of the ways the sawdust mix kills. The disinfectant damaged the microbes’ cell walls. It also may have messed with the microbes’ proteins and DNA, Zhang says. [2]

Early tests hint that the new sawdust soup may be alright for individuals to utilize. Zhang's group applied the fluid to hares' skin. The rabbits appeared all good - recommending the sawdust fluid might be more secure than a few business cleaners. It's too soon to say without a doubt, nonetheless, how safe the sawdust brew would be for be.

Zhang and his associates didn't stop at a sawdust sanitizer. They made sanitizers from other plant materials, as well. A portion of these began as bamboo powder. Others were made utilizing rice straw. Plant materials that were more extravagant atoms that discharge phenol-like mixtures were best at killing microorganisms. One model was corn straw.

References:

1. https://www.scoopearth.com/a-disinfectant-made-from-sawdust-knocks-out-deadly-microbes/
2. https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/innovation-2022-disinfectantant-sawdust-kill-deadly-microbes-sustainable
3. https://medium.com/@alinaradeanu1986/a-disinfectant-made-from-sawdust-knocks-out-deadly-microbes-192a8d7561fa

Cite this article:

Sri Vasagi K (2022),A Disinfectant Made from Sawdust Cuts Down Deadly Bacteria, Anatechmaz, pp. 294