Naturex talks investment in purification technologies
The natural ingredient supplier’s business unit director Stéphanie Puel told this publication that the new portfolio is an example of the brand's efforts to further invest in the purification process.
According to Puel, the 'complex and multi-step' approach involves determining the precise content of a plant and discovering a workable active within it that they can preserve, rather than leaving the plant depleted.
"In an effort to upgrade our scientific tools and expertise, this process has been carried out on seven of these new molecules within the NATpurity range," she explains.
'HPLC liquid chromatography'
That portfolio includes the likes of ‘Asiaticoside' obtained from the leaves of Centella asiatica L from Madagascar for collagen synthesis and skin reparation, which has been extracted using a hydroalcoolic method and purified with a ‘HPLC liquid chromatography’ technology to avoid precipitation and drying.
High-performance liquid chromatography is a technique in analytic chemistry used to separate the components in a mixture, to identify and quantify each component.
It relies on pumps to pass a pressurized liquid solvent containing the sample mixture through a column filled with a solid adsorbent material. Each component in the sample interacts slightly differently with the adsorbent material, causing different flow rates for each one and leading to the separation of the components as they flow out the column.
“This equipment alone is super expensive, costing anywhere from €300,000 to 500,000,” says Stéphanie.
Acquisition has upgraded the brand's expertise
The business unit director says Naturex's purification expertise has been upgraded since acquiring Burgundy Botanical Extracts, a France-based plant extract manufacturer two years ago.
"The HPLC equipment that we have now came with that acquisition, but we have since expanded its use to make it more transferable to the cosmetics industry," Puel explains.
