March 2, 2010
Olmix uses clay and algae to bind mycotoxins
Within the scope of European Eureka project E! 3025 Monalisa, a new alternative against mycotoxins in animal feed has been developed using clay and algae.
The already-known capacity of clay minerals to adsorb mycotoxins has been increased ten times over in this project by the incorporation of molecules of extracts from algae (seaweed) onto the clay.
The resulting activated clay is added to animal feed, where it is highly efficient in adsorbing the mycotoxin molecules.
Mycotoxins - which have, over the years, become one of the major concerns of animal feed producers - are the chemical products of fungal moulds which are often present in cereal grains and forage crops.
French company Olmixwas aware that some naturally-occurring clay minerals, particularly montmorillonite, were able to adsorb organic molecules including these toxic substances onto their surface. The clays are formed of layers of about one nanometre.
Within the Monalisa project, Olmix employed the process known as intercalation, to include molecules of seaweed extracts between the clay layers; making the new product Amadeite？？.
This process separates the layers (delamination) and increases the interlayer space; and as a result the clay is able to adsorb up to ten times the amount of mycotoxins compared to pure clay.
The idea was to introduce a natural product into the clay, rather than the synthetic polymers that had already been used to make activated clays, said Dr Anca Laza-Knoerr.
The process, which involves suspension of the clay and seaweed extract in water, followed by removal of the remaining algal extract, centrifugation and drying, now holds two worldwide patents.
It is the development of this process that is the main technological innovation. As well as applications in the field of animal feed, the clay-algal extract combination has potential uses in the purification of water from waste effluents, heavy metals or radioactive pollution.
Olmix worked on the preparation of the seaweed for extraction in partnership with other specialised laboratories: the European Research Centre for Algae (CEVA,) and the Laboratoire de Mat？？riaux ？？ Porosit？？ Contr？′l？？e (LMPC, Mulhouse).