Pages 246–248
Abstract
Research summary supplied by the authors
The traditional anti-fungal agents consist of a number of drawbacks in terms of environmental sustainability, toxicity, costing etc. This work is targeted to access the anti-fungal property of three plant extracts i.e. drumstick, curry leaves and china rose, in order to validate the anti-fungal property for leather processing. Qualitative as well as quantitative assessment of various phytochemicals were performed which reveals the existence of phenolic compounds, proteins, flavonoid, xanthoprotein, glycoside, amino acid, tannin, quinone, anthraquionone, carotenoids, phytosterol, phlobatannins, terpenoids etc. All these are most important ingredients for presenting antioxidant properties. Antifungal bioassay of the methanolic leaf extracts of the selected plants indicated significant fungal growth inhibition including fungal infected leather. These results pointed to the fact that drumstick, china rose, curry leaf extracts might be remarkable substitute for biological control of leather fungal pathogens having the possibility to be used as leather fungicide. This might also pave way for controlling the overdependence on chemical fungicides. The phytochemical analyses showed effectiveness in scavenging free radicals and thereby are potent to be powerful antioxidants. The presence of various phytochemicals in the extracts gives future prospective towards a cleaner, greener, eco-friendly, economic and sustainable techniques for leather processing.