Comprehensive utilization of dioscorea zingiberensis and industrial scale-up: New approach to pollution prevention in diosgenin industry

As the main active ingredient of Dioscorea zingiberensis, Diosgenin is the important intermediate for the synthesis of steroid hormone medicine. Conventional process in diosgenin industry has a low extraction rate, and also results in severe environmental pollution. Millions of tons of high acidic wastewater and waste residues were discharged to the ambient rivers and field, and caused serious environmental pollution. In this paper, comprehensive utilization process of Dioscorea zingiberensis was studied. Lab test and Industrial Scale-Up was investigated. Compared with conventional process, the yield of diosgenin increased 8%, the consumption of hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid reduced 18% and 5% respectively, and 90.06 kg of starch obtained from one ton fresh Dioscorea zingiberensis. The discharge amount of wastewater decreased 63.3%, COD declined 68.5%, chroma of wastewater reduced 59.6%. The process is an environmentally friendly production technology, but also economic.