A New Development From Schott Protects the Skin and Stops Bacterial Growth

04-Mar-2004

MAINZ, Germany. Soft to the skin, yet tough on microbes, these are the surprising traits that an extremely fine glass powder from Schott Glas in Mainz, exhibits.

Because it is extremely kind to the skin, bioactive glass could play a major role in the making of cosmetics, as an active ingredient of deodorants, for example. "In addition to the other positive effects it has on body tissue, our glass powder eliminates the bacteria that cause body odor in a very mild manner," Schott researcher, Dr. Sean Lee, explains. Conceivably, glass powder could also be used to produce medical cremes or powders that protect the skin.

So-called bioactive glass is produced using a predefined mixing ratio of only the four elements silicon, calcium, sodium and phosphorus of high purity. These substances are then ground down to form a very fine powder. All of these elements can already be found inside the human body. This perhaps explains why the body tolerates them so well. The resulting powder resembles powdered sugar in texture and appearance . A single grain of the powder has a diameter of only 5/1000 of a millimeter. As a point of reference, a human hair is 50 times as thick.

Just recently, this glass powder became available as an active ingredient for use in the cosmetics industry. For this reason, Schott has entered into a partnership with Engelhard Corporation, a Fortune 500 company and leading US supplier to the industry. Both companies have been working together to further develop this high tech active ingredient and market it to cosmetic companies.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/35877/a-new-development-from-schott-protects-the-skin-and-stops-bacterial-growth.html