Sustainable cosmetics comopany Keracol Ltd is using Asynt DrySyn heating blocks and CondenSyn air condensers in the development and scale-up of their award-winning Dr Craft Mandarin green beauty product range.
UK-based Keracol Ltd is a sustainable cosmetics spin-out company born from more than 15 years of scientific research between Professor Chris Rayner and Professor Richard Blackburn of the University of Leeds. The company breathes new life into otherwise unused or under-researched natural ingredients with an emphasis on waste fruit and vegetable materials from the food industry. These are paired with innovative and sustainable extraction processes to develop ‘Dr Craft’ safe cosmetic actives.
Supported by an in-depth knowledge of their cosmetic benefits at a chemical level, Dr Craft skincare products designed to be better for the environment, as well as safer for consumers. The company’s Mandarin Range is based on upcycling mandarin peels as part of a collaborative research project to eliminate waste and improve food safety. The peels are rich in the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and wound healing actives Narirutin and Hesperidin, making them suitable for inclusion in skin treatments.
Dr Kristina Hetherington, senior scientist at Keracol said: “Finding alternative ways to reduce water consumption and conserve energy by utilising laboratory equipment such as the DrySyn heating blocks and CondenSyn air condensers is essential to our development of green beauty products. Working with different food waste requires researching and identifying the optimal conditions for extraction of specific actives and we have standardised on Asynt DrySyn heating blocks, hotplate stirrers and CondenSyn waterless condensers as our ‘go to’ laboratory tools.
"The DrySyn heating blocks and hotplate stirrers have proven to be highly reliable in reproducing the conditions for our world-first optimised extraction protocols. We rely on the CondenSyn waterless condensers heavily too as we always recycle our solvents. Crucially, when we scale-up our extraction process, the CondenSyn MAXI is an incredible tool which has ensured we recover an amazing 98% of the solvent. This is then recycled for subsequent extractions of each active material.
“The Asynt technical team has been a constant source of knowledge and support, and the equipment has proven to be highly reliable, allowing us to do our essential research effectively and sustainably. Additionally, Asynt are incredibly responsive to queries or changing demands in our laboratories.”
The CondenSyn Waterless Air Condenser range is a proven ‘green’ replacement for water cooled condensers and suitable for greater than 95% of all chemical reflux applications. By not using cooling water the environmental impact of a lab using CondenSyn is dramatically reduced, as is the cost of water usage. The DrySyn range of laboratory heating blocks is a lower-power consumption alternative to oil baths and heating mantles. It is designed to offer clean, safe synthesis for single or multiple reactions. For further information, please visit https://www.asynt.com/ or contact Asynt on +44-1638-781709 / enquiries@asynt.com.
