The team of Ekaterina Litvinova, Candidate of Biological Sciences, presented a product for the end consumer: a series of tests under the trademark "UNIgel" based on chitosan biogel. Tests will help to check wine and other beverages at home for the content of dyes, watermelons, and other fruits and vegetables — to test for the presence of nitrates.
— "UNIgel" is intended for the general consumer, for people who wonder what quality products they buy for themselves and their family, — says Ekaterina Litvinova. — For the first time, we made a product for the consumer and not in the interests of a particular industry. The trial batch of UNIgel was presented at Technoprom-2023, where we also conducted demonstrations on the use of tests. For us, in many ways, this is the first experience — it was necessary to think through the packaging, the name of the product, the ways of informing, and promotion. For UNIgel, we have created a telegram channel where we discuss the tests. The nitrate test is a common chemical reaction in the school chemistry course. The tests work like a litmus test: it is enough to drop a little bit on the biogel, for example, watermelon juice. If the watermelon was "fed" and there are nitrates in it, the gel in the test will change color to red. The UNIgel test for the determination of dyes in beverages acts in the opposite way: it changes the color of the drink in which it is immersed if an artificial dye is present in the liquid. "UNIgel" discolors the drink and absorbs food dyes artificially added to wine or more. Natural dyes do not react, and if they are present, the color of the drink does not change.
— We are currently looking for an investor to organize the release of UNIgel tests on an industrial scale. But there is another side to this development. Thanks to the properties of the biogel itself: a porous structure, the ability to retain certain substances, as if sealing them in itself, hypoallergenic, and at a fairly affordable price — it can be used as a "purifier" of wine. We are currently negotiating with several winemakers, offering them the opportunity to introduce into the production cycle the stage of purification of wine materials with the help of our biogel. The other side is "UNIgel", which is now working as an indicator of nitrates, can be converted into an antidote. Let us say that a person unknowingly ate a nitrate watermelon. A medicine or dietary supplement based on our biogel could significantly minimize the consequences of such a "feast". This is a more distant prospect than using UNIgel, but we are working in this direction," Ekaterina Litvinova added.
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Ekaterina Litvinova's team has been studying the properties of biogel in its various modifications for the second year. The project is part of the biomedical direction of the "Priority 2030" program implemented at NSTU NETI, and has broad prospects for use in industrial and domestic conditions, as well as for the needs of medicine, animal husbandry and crop production.
The initial product, created in collaboration with chemists of the Institute of Organic Synthesis (Yekaterinburg), is chitosan compounds — a safe biogel capable of retaining, giving away and transporting various useful substances.
In the application of gels for the needs of crop production, a group of developers has already entered field trials. Another big block of work concerns the tasks of veterinary medicine.