The Institute for Advanced Core Technology, Suntory Ltd. announced on January 25, 2007 that it had successfully engineered "water-purifying plant life," after working jointly with Florigene Pty Ltd. of Australia. This plant life is capable of storing higher concentrations of phosphorus than plant life in its natural state.

Researchers of the two organizations successfully created a new strain of water-purifying plant by isolating and extracting a gene in the Thale Cress plant and injecting the extracted genetic material into Wishbone flowers to increase its capacity of absorbing and storing phosphorus in high concentrations (a patent is pending). The engineered Wishbone flowers were found to accumulate three to six times higher concentrations of phosphorus than the same plant without being genetically engineered. The study shows that this engineered plant enables environmental cleanup with less environmental impact at a lower cost compared to the conventional methods of water purification.

Suntory is going to apply its original floating propagation technology, which uses high-tech sponges to grow plants on the water surface (patent pending) for implementation of this new type of water purification on a practical level. As the plants contain high concentrations of phosphorus after being used to filter the water, the plants can be used as untreated fertilizer.

The institute plans to develop this technology for practical application as a new water purification method for rivers and lakes. In the future, it aims to increase the plant's capacity to absorb phosphorus concentrations in order to create an alternative to phosphorus ore.

http://www.suntory.com/about/news/2007/9679.html

Posted: 2007/05/24 11:34:56 AM
Japanese version

TAG Ecosystem , Food/Water , Manufacturing industry , Technology