Drug – bio-affecting and body treating compositions – Preparations characterized by special physical form – Particulate form
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-24
2001-03-27
Weber, Jon P. (Department: 1651)
Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions
Preparations characterized by special physical form
Particulate form
C424S499000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06207196
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a plant-based material derived from the above-ground parts of cereal plants or from major fractions of these.
It also relates to a process for preparing such material.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, there has been considerable development in biomaterials, mainly for ecological reasons.
In general, these materials are either materials reconstituted from products isolated from plants, or products isolated from plants mixed with synthetic materials, such as polymers. A commercially available product composed of a combination of a synthetic biopolymer and wheat, corn or potato starch, is an example of a material in this latter category. Several polymers may be combined with starch, such as polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene or polyvinyl alcohol.
In the first category are materials obtained by combination of starch with plant fibers.
However, these products have limited mechanical properties and are often sensitive to water.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,772 discloses compositions, which may be used as packaging materials, containing a starch-based binder, an inorganic filler, and fibers dispersed uniformly in the starch matrix. These fibers may include cellulose fibers, and may be obtained from leaves, stems, or other parts of the plant.
However, these fibers, and the starch, must necessarily be isolated, which considerably increases the manufacturing costs.
Application WO 95/04 111 discloses articles composed of a material containing wood particles impregnated with acid resin and a binder, which may be starch and/or proteins. In this material, the wood particles must necessarily be impregnated with resins and plant oils or fats.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,368 relates to a process for manufacturing packaging materials, comprising the production of a paste by heating a flour, from a graminaceous plant. This paste is mixed with crushed hay.
This process necessarily requires the production of the flour from the graminaceous plant, then its cooking, before admixture with the hay. There is thus no direct mixing of the grain and the hay.
It thus emerges from the state of the art that there is no known process for producing coherent materials from raw plant matter, in other words from plant matter not having been subjected to separation, or isolation of its different components.
One of the problems posed to a person skilled in the art lies in the heterogeneity of the components within a single plant tissue, and even more between two different tissues. In fact, in a whole cereal plant, the fibers have very different characters according to the part of the plant, both in their composition and shape. Thus, fibers of wheat straw or of the outer part of the stems and leaves of corn are long fibers, rich in cellulose (40-45% of dry matter), relatively ligneous (15% of dry matter), the remainder being composed of hemicelluloses, of xylan type structure. The fibers of corn bran or wheat bran (grain coating) are very different, being short, elastic, much richer in hemicelluloses (up to 60% of dry matter of the fibers against 15% of cellulose and 8% of lignin). In addition, these hemicelluloses are of arabinoxylan type, much more highly substituted than the stem xylans, and with thickening and gelling properties in solution in water, in fact filmogenic properties. The fibers of the outer part of the corn cob (hard part) are very different from those of the central or inner part (tender or soft part). The former are very hard, proportionally richer in cellulose (47%) and in lignin (7%) and less in hemicelluloses (37%), while the latter are soft, proportionally less rich in cellulose (35%) and in lignin (5%). The water-absorbent power of the soft fibers is seven times greater than that of the hard fibers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The applicant has solved the problem of the heterogeneity of the components by treatment of the whole plant under specific conditions.
The object of the present invention is thus a process for preparing a plant-based material derived from at least one whole cereal plant comprising the following steps:
a) cutting the whole of the above-ground parts of the plant, or a major fraction of them, into fragments,
b) grinding, or shearing, the fragments into granules with an average size of between about 0.01 and 10 mm,
c) adjusting the water content of the granules until an overall hydration level of between 10 and 35% is achieved, and
d) forming the material.
If the residual humidity level of the fragments obtained from step a) is too high, said fragments may be dried to a residual humidity level of between bout 5 and 20%. Such treatment may in particular be necessary when the plant matter is corn.
The above-ground parts of the plant should be particularly understood include the stems, leaves, cobs, grain, husks, but also any other above-ground part which may be present, as a function of the plant variety and species.
The plant matter must be derived from at least one cereal plant. It may however also comprise matter derived from one or more non-cereal plants.
The inclusion of non-above-ground parts of the plant is not particularly desired within the scope of this process, but the presence of small quantities of these non-above-ground plants does not invalidate the application of this process.
Cereal plants which may be used in the application of this process may include any cereal plant whose grain contains a sufficient quantity of starch, preferably at least 20% by weight of starch in the whole plant. They may in particular be corn, hard wheat, soft wheat, sorghum, oats, rye and rice.
One of the advantages of the present process lies in the fact that it is not necessary to perform a separation of the different parts of the plant, for example the separation of the leaves and the stem, in order to apply it. Thus, the step of cutting into fragments may be performed directly at the time of harvest, in the field.
The invention may nevertheless be applied by using either the whole of the above-ground parts of the plant which have previously been isolated, or a major fraction of these isolated above-ground parts. A major fraction should be understood as at least 80% by weight of the above-ground parts of the plant. It may also be applied by using the above-ground parts of plants belonging to different varieties or species.
By way of illustration, it is possible to use the process according to the present invention by using, as above-ground parts, wheat straw and wheat grain.
In addition, low quantities of additives may be added at any of the stages of the process, if necessary.
The above-ground parts of the plant are advantageously cut into fragments of average length between about 0.5 and 10 cm, and even more preferably between 2 and 8 cm.
This cutting may be performed by any method known to a person skilled in the art which leads to fragments of this size
According to a preferred embodiment of this invention, the fragments dried in step b) to a residual humidity level of between about 7 and 13%.
This step is advantageously performed with a rotary dryer, for example a temperature of 950° C. for several minutes. However, it may also be performed by any other drying process known to a skilled person.
Step b) of grinding or shearing is preferably performed until granules of between about 0.5 and 1 mm in length are obtained. In the case of corn, a fraction of the hard part of the cob, less than about 10% by weight of the whole plant, may be discarded.
The size of the granules is measured by passing them through sieves with decreasing diameter meshes. For example, granules having a size of between about 0.5 and 1 mm pass through meshes of 1 mm in diameter but do not pass through sieves with a diameter of 0.5 mm.
The size distribution of the granules obtained by this step is advantageously the following:
between about 5 and 50% by weight of the dry matter of the granules having a size of less than about 0.25 mm,
between about 5 and 40% by weight of the dry matter of the granules having a size of between about 0.25 and 0.5 mm,
between about
Gaset Antoine
Peyrat Eric
Pluquet Vincent
Rigal Luc
Patten Patricia A
Societe Cooperative Agricole Vivadour
Weber Jon P.
Young & Thompson
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