A new, sustainable disinfectant made from sawdust and water can knock out more than 99 percent of some disease-causing microbes, including anthrax and several strains of flu.
Widespread use of some disinfectants can cause environmental harms. For instance, chlorine-containing ones, such as bleach,
when they react with other molecules . Some other potentially greener disinfectants rely on a compound called phenol or its chemical lookalikes, but they can be costly and energy-intensive to make. Phenolic structures abound in wood, however, as part of the large, branching molecules that make up plant cell walls. So environmental engineer Shicheng Zhang of Fudan University in Shanghai and colleagues wondered if sawdust waste could provide a greener source of antimicrobial compounds.
The researchers cooked mixtures of water and sawdust for one hour under pressure and filtered them. Then the team tested the sawdust concoctions for their prowess at killing off the microbes, a skin microbe that can cause infections in immunocompromised people, andDepending on a disinfectant’s concentration, it could zap more than 99 percent of the microbes, the team reports in the Jan. 18
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