Ceramics extracted from wool are similar to those of human skin
The Gaiker technology centre has developed a project to obtain wool ceramics from supercritical fluid extraction processes.
The supercritical fluid is a fluid above the critical pressures and temperatures. It has properties between liquid and gas and is an appropriate solvent.
The most used supercritical fluid is CO2. In fact, its critical conditions are relatively low (31 °C, 73 atm) and therefore easy to work.
This work has aroused great interest in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In fact, ceramics currently used in the manufacture of creams and similar are prepared with synthetic and/or biotechnological methods and are very expensive. In addition, the chemical composition of ceramics obtained with these processes is not the same as that of human skin.
However, ceramics extracted from wool present a composition similar to the upper layer of the skin. On the outside they have lanolin, a very used lipid in cosmetics and on the inside is very rich in ceramics.
The performance of the extraction process with supercritical CO2 is high and the results have shown that the extracted lipids form a solid liposome structure. This acts as a barrier to the skin, increases skin hydration and facilitates the formation of skins that are chemically and mechanically altered.
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