It might be winter, but two scientists in Peoria, Ill., have sunscreen on their minds. U.S. Department of Agriculture chemists have made a new, biodegradable sunscreen by using soybean oil and a natural chemical in oat bran.
Joe Laszlo and Dave Compton started working with the compound, called ferulic acid, because it’s structurally similar to the synthetic chemicals in commercial sunscreens. Like the synthetics, ferulic acid absorbs skin-damaging ultraviolet light. But ferulic acid dissolves in water, making it unsuitable, by itself, for water-resistant sunscreens, says Compton. So he and Laszlo chemically bonded ferulic acid to soybean oil, yielding a waterproof formulation.