Browsing by Author "San Martín, R"

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    Industrial uses and sustainable supply of Quillaja saponaria (Rosaceae) saponins
    (1999) San Martín, R; Briones, R
    The bark of the tree Quillaja saponaria, indigenous to Chile, is one of the major sources of industrially used triterpenoid saponins. For decades quillaja extracts have been used as foaming agents in beverages, emulsifiers in foods, wetting agent in photography, etc. Overexploitation of the bar-h: has caused important ecological damage and a shortage of this resource. However; this can still be remedied by using whole quillaja wood (and not just the bark), for the production of saponins. This uaw material can be obtained in Inr-ge quantities from pruning operations. reducing the need to felt trees. This review covers ecological aspects of quillaja exploitation, as well as a discussion of its novel industrial applications.
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    Marketable emission permits with imperfect monitoring
    (2003) San Martín, R
    The objectives of Santiago's Prevention and Air Cleaning Plan (PPDA) are established in terms of quantities of emissions. This is the reason why economic instruments like marketable emission permits seem to be the more attractive instruments to reach the objectives of the plan. In Santiago there is one experience with this kind of instrument, since in 1992 the government enacted the Executive Order No. 4 (EO4), whose objective was to regulate the PM 10 and TPS emissions from boilers in the metropolitan region. In this work, using a simulation model, the enlargement of this system to include the industrial processes is studied. These sources are responsible for about 12% of the emissions of particulate material in the area of Santiago. The difficulties of this enlargement are related to the impossibility of having a continuous monitoring of sources. Because of this, the emissions have to be estimated using a proxy variable. This fact brings welfare losses because of the alteration of the marginal abatement costs and the difference between targeted emission reduction and effective emission reduction reached by the system.
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    Quality control of commercial quillaja (Quillaja saponaria Molina) extracts by reverse phase HPLC
    (2000) San Martín, R; Briones, R
    Saponin-rich extracts of the Chilean indigenous tree Quillaja saponaria Molina are widely used as natural foaming agents in foods and beverages, food emulsifiers, photographic emulsions, vaccine adjuvants, etc. However, with the exception of the vaccine industry, saponin concentration is not adequately quantified. Normally, the quality and price of the extracts are determined using simple foam tests. This may not be adequate, since similar foam levels can be obtained by blending quillaja extracts with other low-cost saponin sources (eg Yucca shidigera extracts). Also, many products are diluted with high amounts of carriers, reducing significantly their saponin concentration. To overcome these problems and standardise the qualify of commercial extracts, the use of reverse phase HPLC techniques is explored. It is shown that RP-HPLC yields consistent and repetitive results and can be easily implemented to control the quality of quillaja extracts. Commercial non-refined extracts contain 190-200 g saponins kg(-1) solids, while semi-refined extracts contain 750-800 g saponins kg(-1) solids. Also, extracts derived from quillaja bark (traditional raw material) and whole quillaja wood (novel ecological production method) have similar saponin composition and concentration. (C) 2000 Society of Chemical Industry.