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Salt From Plants

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the mrs.-dash dept.

Makarand writes "Researchers in India have been able to extract salt from a plant source for the first time. The plant salt comes from a salt-loving leafless shrub, salicornia brachaita, that grows under high-salt conditions accumulating salt in its tissues. This plant's cultivation was being studied as a possible solution to reclaiming salty soil along coastal areas. While regular sea salt is predominantly NaCl, this plant salt has salts of potassium, calcium, magnesium and also nutrients like iron and hence could be marketed as a health salt."

5 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Somebody has to say it . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Now they don't have to march to the ocean anymore!

    HAHAHAHAHA.

    I kill me.

  2. Health salts? by Viqsi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Out of curiosity, what is a "health salt"? I've never heard of such before...

    (oh, and for some reason, this keeps coming to mind: http://www.angryflower.com/nacl.gif.)

    --

    --
    viqsi - See "vixen"
    If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
    1. Re:Health salts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
      No kidding.

      While regular sea salt is predominantly NaCl, this plant salt has salts of potassium, calcium, magnesium and also nutrients like iron.

      That's very misleading, since regular sea salt contains a healthy amount of all those nutrients. Rock salt doesn't have much of these trace minerals and doesn't taste as good either.

  3. Re:Wow by zogger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    --it's the totality of the process, and the potential. First, this is India, any job is a good job there,and right now that's a lot of wasted space that could be farmed. After the salt sucker plants are used for enough seasons, it's back to normal farming with the reclaimed land. The plants produce a salt with micronutrients that could be packaged as a "seasoning salt" in the spices section of the grocery store, or perhaps put into capsules with some other stuff as a dietary supplement, again, useful. The plant also produces some sort of oil in decent extractable quantities, but the article didn't say if it was edible, or useful for something else, my guess is it's useful for *something* practical, as most vegetable oils are. Fuel if nothing else, maybe biodiesel for their tractors? So it's a win/win/win/win deal for them. The patent idea I have no clue on, unless they invented a unique process for extraction. Lot of prior art on using plants for whatever.

  4. Re:Wow by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article said they were primerily looking for a crop that would extract salts from the soil to make it habitable for planting food and other money producing crops. It said they filed for a patent on the process for extracing the salt form the plants. Nowhere did it say they plant to make "salt farms" and try to make money selling the salt they could extract with their newly developed process.

    It said they expect the total cost of the "vegitable salt" to be around 10-12 Rupees per Kilogram... which works out to about 10 cents (american) per pound, give or take a penny.

    I don't know what the price of refined salt is in India, but I'm guessing that won't be very competative. The only way they're going to sell it at that price is by marketing it as a dietary supplement.

    They DO mention, however, that the plants provide an edible oil from thier seeds, so I'm sure the intention here is more like: "Hey look, one more thing we can sell to make desalinating land more worthwhile!" (As if gaining usable farmland from wasted fields wasn't good enough, but I dunno what their situation is)
    =Smidge=