Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and Addis Ababa University began a project in 2019 to make sustainable chemical products from Vernonia galamensis, a plant usually dismissed as a weed.
Vernonia galamensis, the ironweed whose seed oil is the focus of the project (Dick Culbert / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
The Mülheim-based institute, known as MPI CEC, works on green chemistry, including making chemical products without fossil raw materials. Director Walter Leitner, an honorary member of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia, started the cooperation with Professor Yonas Chebude, head of chemistry at Addis Ababa University, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
Vernonia galamensis, also called ironweed, belongs to the sunflower family and grows wild near the equator. Its seed oil is naturally rich in epoxidised fatty acids, which makes it far more reactive, and more useful as an industrial raw material, than most vegetable oils. The team planned to develop catalysts to turn the oil into products such as biodegradable plastics and adhesives.
There was no commercial cultivation of the plant, although demand for the oil already existed. "If one can prove that sustainable products can be produced from the supposed weeds, this would not only be progress in the field of green chemistry but also a lucrative export product for Ethiopia," Chebude said.
The one-year project was funded by a private donation and included research stays for doctoral students and technical staff at both institutes. MPI CEC says the partnership has continued since then, with later work on converting bamboo waste into platform chemicals.
Sources: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, idw: Aus Unkraut wird Rohstoff, MPI CEC