Salix Viminalis as a Source of Nanomaterials and Bioactive Natural Substances - Natural Polymers, Biopolymers, Biomaterials, and Their Composites, Blends, and IPNs - page 106

Figure 8 presents a selected part of a gas chromatogram recorded for the extracts A
and B. The extract B consisting of furan derivative contains more oxygen heterocyclic
compounds compared to extract A. The excess of O -heterocycles is responsible for
the observed (better) antioxidant activity of extract B (Figure 9). Careful analysis of
GC, FT-IR, and NMR results let to identify more than 50 compounds which could be
accounted to the compounds potentially exhibiting antioxidant activity. Some of them
are listed in Table 3 which contains names, formulas and information on most typical
MS ions observed during the GC-MS identification. In general, most of the identified
compounds may be seen as derivatives of the three basic structures (Figure 10): (A)
cumarol alcohol, (B) coniferyl alcohol , and (C) synapine alcohol.
Figure 10. Three basic phenolic structures occurring in “bio oil.”
Analysis on Figure 9 proves the superiority of Salix viminalis -originated “bio oil”
over commercially available antioxidant BHT. The advantage is very spectacular since
DBS protection time is more than 3-times longer in the case of “bio oil”. It has to be
stated that “bio oil” fabrication is relatively simple and does require complex proce-
dures and expensive reagents. It is nearly completely environment friendly because of
the following reasons:
• Basic raw material comes from renewable resources that is may be grown on
low-quality soils with minor use of agriculture chemicals,
• All products of the proposed thermal treatment may be successfully applied in
different domains of everyday life and industry,
• Solid product may serve as a sort of active carbon and/or burn as fossil fuel,
• Liquefied fraction of gas products is a source of precious chemicals including
very efficient antioxidants,
• A part of non-liquefied gas products may be burned as a fossil fuel,
• A part of non-liquefied gas products consists of species which are not toxic (at
level of limited concentration) for people and other forms of flora and fauna .
In literature, it is hard to find other examples of processes which produce less
waste.