Nut waste turns into next-generation medical miracle

A graduate student at the University of Chicago found that the ineffective nuts used in herbal tea can revolutionize medical devices, turning medical tools that most people discard into powerful medical tools. The study, published today in Materials, shows how to design the gel-like leftovers of Malva Nut Tea into advanced materials, from wound healing to heart monitoring.

Malva Nut, known in traditional Chinese medicine, has extraordinary ability to expand in water, with 20 times the expansion of its original body weight. When most people discard the resulting jelly after drinking tea, doctoral student Changxu Sun has no potential for development.

“You’ve never seen fruit in trees expand in this number,” Sun leads research at the University of Chicago’s Prizker School of Molecular Engineering. “Initially, it’s the width of the oval. Once you soak it in water, it will expand about eight times in volume and weigh about 20 times, turning into a gel-like mass like a jelly.”

This significant expansion far outweighs other natural ingredients – the rice only expands 3 times when cooked, and Chia seeds can only manage 10 times its original weight. The team transformed this natural phenomenon into a complex hydrogel—a water-based material that mimics human tissue and can be used in a variety of medical applications.

Bozhi Tian, ​​a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, praised Sun’s innovative ideas: “This is an outstanding discovery of an extraordinary student. Changxu looked at herbal tea and saw the world of sustainable biomedical applications that could be built.”

The team developed a process that extracts useful components from nuts, removes hard shell material and creates a pure freeze-dried scaffolding and rejuvenates when water is added. Tests show that the resulting hydrogels perform better than commercial products in several medical applications, especially when recording cardiac signals through ECG plaques.

“We found that it exhibited superior performance and quality compared to commercial ECG plaques. We then applied the tissue surface in the body to the tissue surface, demonstrating a large amount of recording of biological signals,” Sun explained. “We want to show that people should shift their attention to unexplored traits and unexplored natural plant resources.”

This discovery may have a special impact on the Malva tree that is local to Southeast Asian countries. Sun believes these countries have the potential to develop valuable medical resources from local materials to provide healthcare solutions and economic opportunities.

“They are low-income countries. Their healthcare system is always limited by lack of resources,” Sun noted. “Here we have a local material that can be used to create valuable healthcare solutions while providing economic stability to these poor areas.”

The team’s approach focuses on sustainability, converting nut waste into medical-grade materials with minimal treatment. The resulting hydrogels show promise in a variety of applications, from wound dressings that promote healing to bioelectronic interfaces that can monitor heart activity.

This work represents a broader trend in medical research to find synthetic materials for sustainable natural alternatives. The success of Malva nuts suggests that other plant-based materials currently considered waste may have similar potential for medical applications.

This discovery could lead to more affordable medical equipment in areas where traditional medical resources are scarce, while creating value from what was previously considered waste. This approach combines environmental sustainability with medical innovation, turning yesterday’s tea residue into tomorrow’s medical technology.