By-product bonus reuse: waste water chestnut shell turns into black yuan treasure, what is the effect of water chestnut shell

Water chestnut is produced in Taiwan from September to November every year. In a field full of leaves, if you open the leaves, you can see the water chestnut popping out between the stems. In fact, the cultivation of water chestnut has been reported for more than 2,000 years, and it is a quite representative product of Guantian in Tainan, Taiwan. Now, with the efforts of the research team of Taipei Medical University, the abandoned water chestnut shell will be transformed into a black treasure through the study of water chestnut shell extracts and purified products, which will bring greater utilization value in health care.

Every season when the autumn wind is valiant, it ushered in the prosperous period of water chestnut. For a long time, the output of water chestnut planted in the official fields of Tainan has been the highest in the country, and every autumn presents a busy pastoral scenery, making the scenery of "Ling Xiang Zhou Ying" one of the eight sights of New South Japan.

With the progress of science and technology, farmers keep the fresh and sweet water chestnut in the season with advanced cold technology. Whenever they come to Guantian, they can taste the delicious food of water chestnut. Although the water chestnut is delicious, peeling the shell will produce nearly 3700 metric tons of abandoned water chestnut shell every year. In order to solve the problem of where the water chestnut shell goes, Guantian reuses the water chestnut shell waste and turns it into water char to improve soil and purify farmland water quality. As water chestnut biochar can also produce additional value products such as bamboo vinegar or wood vinegar in the production process, it can be used for agricultural purposes such as pest control, soil improvement, composting, and even extract polyphenols and isoflavones from water chestnut shell to produce cosmetic and maintenance products. . Let the water chestnut play its value from the outside to the inside.

With the advent of the aging tsunami, the water chestnut shell extract is excavated to resist the dawn.

Taiwan has entered an advanced age society in 107. according to a survey conducted by the National Development Commission, it is expected that negative population growth will occur in the next 3 to 10 years (the total population growth rate will turn negative from 2021 to 2028). Further, according to the Taiwan Association for retardation, the number of people suffering from mental retardation in Taiwan exceeded 270000 in December, and about half of the elderly over 85 years old suffered from generalized dementia.

The longer people live, it will inevitably be accompanied by cognitive and behavioral degenerative diseases that affect the quality of life, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Excluding age and familial genetic causes, "in order to improve the problem of degenerative diseases caused by old age, we try to find a solution from the water chestnut shell extract." Said Hou Wenqi, a professor at the Institute of Pharmacy at Taipei Medical University.

The research team composed of Professor Hou Wenqi, Professor Wang Jingqiong of Taipei Medical University and Professor Chen Ligeng of Chiayi University has participated in the "key Technology Enhancement Program for key Bio-economic Industries of the Council of Agriculture" since January 2017. The team used Guantian waste water chestnut shell as raw material to obtain extracts and other distinguishing substances through different extraction methods, and then combined with enzyme and cell in vitro tests for activity screening. "as we all know, free radicals are the killers of aging, including various chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, senile dementia, immune system disorders. As for acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, they are the current clinical drugs for Alzheimer's disease, and the results of in vitro experiments show that each extract of water chestnut shell has concentration-dependent acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity and free radical scavenging ORAC antioxidant activity, and each extract has strong activity in inhibiting galactose / bovine serum albumin mode glycosylation reaction. In other words, the results of external experiments extracted from the water chestnut shell can continue to evaluate in vivo animal models that improve cognitive and behavioral degenerative diseases. "

The team also conducted animal experiments on water chestnut shell extracts. The experimental results showed that the waste water chestnut shell was also used as raw material and scopolamine (scopolamine) was used to induce mice similar to Alzheimer's disease. water maze or passive avoidance test was used to evaluate the effect of learning and memory improvement. The results showed that compared with the non-intervention group, the intervention group significantly prolonged the stay time in the open room of mice with Alzheimer's disease induced by scopolamine, or significantly increased the stay time in the platform quadrant and the number of times in and out of the platform quadrant of mice with Alzheimer's disease induced by scopolamine. In other words, the water chestnut shell extract can effectively improve the learning and memory of mice with Alzheimer's disease induced by scopolamine. " Hou Wenqi explained.

Invite enterprises to participate in the technology transfer of water chestnut to become health care black gold

With regard to the research results, Hou Wenqi said that it was mentioned in the Compendium of Materia Medica that the shell could be used for the treatment of dysentery, while the Compendium of Materia Medica mentioned that the ash (or storage) of the shell was mixed with sesame oil or sesame oil, and external application could treat swelling and poison or yellow water sore on the head. It shows that the water chestnut shell has the effect of internal and external use. The Chinese Materia Medica published in the mainland shows that the diamond shell can be taken internally in soup (the dosage is 15 grams 30 grams, large doses can be up to 60 grams). However, at present, there is no clear regulation on whether the water chestnut shell is an edible raw material in our country. In the future, if we can further confirm the raw material specification and safety of water chestnut shell, it will improve the reuse of water chestnut by-products and product value-added, and then increase the income of regional farmers. "Water chestnut shell powder can also be used for food addition, such as water chestnut shell powder omelet, water chestnut shell powder cake, water chestnut shell powder added to Egg-Yolk Puff, and so on. We very much welcome interested enterprises to participate, whether in the field of food or health food. in the future, through technological transformation, we can further develop health foods to improve cognitive and behavioral degenerative diseases, so as to contribute to the prevention and treatment of the elderly society."

In the past, after harvesting the water chestnut and taking out the kernels, the farmers either discarded the water chestnut shell and burned it in the open air at the edge of the field, or it was cleared by a garbage truck, and through the concept of circular economy, the water chestnut shell was reused, not only to further reverse the impression of water chestnut agricultural waste, but also to make the water chestnut shell become a potential farmland black gold.

Related information

For more details on the R & D results of this project, please contact Mr. he of Agricultural Science and Technology Research Institute, a legal person of the consortium, Tel: 03-5185049, email: 1072086@mail.atri.org.tw