Karelian shungite adsorbs six major agricultural mycotoxins at 81-100% efficiency in simulated gastric conditions: a 2021 peer-reviewed study from Kant Baltic Federal University

The study

A 2021 peer-reviewed study published in the journal Antioxidants (MDPI publishing, open-access, indexed on PubMed Central as PMC8301057) tested Karelian shungite samples for mycotoxin-adsorption capacity under simulated gastric conditions. The results are striking enough to warrant their own line in the rock's modern documented-properties record.

The paper:

- Title: "A Study of the Antioxidant, Cytotoxic Activity and Adsorption Properties of Karelian Shungite by Physicochemical Methods"
- Authors: Liubov Skrypnik, Olga Babich, Stanislav Sukhikh, Olga Shishko, Svetlana Ivanova, Oleg Mozhei, Ivan Kochish, Ilia Nikonov
- Affiliations: Institute of Living Systems, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad; Natural Nutraceutical Biotesting Laboratory, Kemerovo State University; Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology
- Journal: Antioxidants 10(7), Article 1121 (2021)
- DOI: 10.3390/antiox10071121
- Open-access full text via PMC: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and via MDPI: mdpi.com

The samples

The study tested five Karelian shungite preparations sourced from the Karelskiy Shungitovyy Zavod (Petrozavodsk, Russia):

- Sh5, 5 µm particle fraction
- Sh20, 20 µm particle fraction
- ShT20, 20 µm fraction with heat treatment at 900°C for 2 hours
- Sh209, 209 µm particle fraction
- ShT209, 209 µm fraction with heat treatment

The mineralogical composition of the samples is reported as: SiO₂ 57.0 wt%, TiO₂ 0.2 wt%, Al₂O₃ 4.0 wt% (the silicate-mineral component), with the remainder being carbon and trace mineral phases.

The fraction-and-treatment range was designed to test how particle size and heat-conditioning affect the adsorption-and-bioactivity properties.

The mycotoxin adsorption results

The principal finding of the paper is the adsorption capacity of the heat-treated 20 µm fraction (ShT20) against six major agricultural mycotoxins, tested in simulated gastric conditions. The results are reported as adsorption percentage, desorption percentage, and net efficiency:

Aflatoxin B1 (the most carcinogenic naturally-occurring substance known, IARC Group 1 human carcinogen, the cause of acute liver-failure outbreaks in contaminated-grain consumption events):
- Adsorption: 100%
- Desorption: 1.2%
- Net efficiency: 98.8%

Ochratoxin A (renal-toxic, Group 2B IARC carcinogen, common contaminant of stored cereals and coffee):
- Adsorption: 100%
- Desorption: 0.0%
- Net efficiency: 100%

T-2 toxin (a trichothecene mycotoxin, immunosuppressive, the agent behind alimentary-toxic-aleukia outbreaks):
- Adsorption: 93%
- Desorption: 13.0%
- Net efficiency: 81%

Deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin, a Fusarium-mould toxin, the principal cause of feed-refusal in livestock and emetic episodes in humans):
- Adsorption: 96%
- Desorption: 12.0%
- Net efficiency: 84%

Zearalenone (an oestrogenic mycotoxin, causes reproductive disorders in livestock, suspected endocrine-disruptor in humans):
- Adsorption: 100%
- Desorption: 0.0%
- Net efficiency: 100%

Fumonisin (a Fusarium toxin, neural-tube-defect risk factor, oesophageal-cancer risk factor):
- Adsorption: 100%
- Desorption: 4.8%
- Net efficiency: 95%

Five of the six mycotoxins are bound by the heat-treated 20 µm shungite fraction at 95-100% net efficiency. The sixth (T-2 toxin) is bound at 81% net efficiency, lower because of its higher desorption rate.

The mycotoxin selection is not random. These are the six mycotoxins on the principal regulatory-and-public-health watchlists for grain-and-feed contamination, the toxins that food-safety authorities (EU FSA, US FDA, WHO/JECFA) set maximum-residue-limits for in human and animal food chains. The Skrypnik 2021 study is, in effect, demonstrating that the Karelian rock can act as a broad-spectrum mycotoxin-binder under conditions analogous to gastric digestion.

The antioxidant activity results

The same study measured antioxidant activity using two standard methods.

Amperometric method, strongest activity in the Sh20 (untreated 20 µm) fraction:
- 1.30 mg ascorbic-acid equivalents per gram of shungite
- 3.46 mg trolox equivalents per gram
- 0.99 mg quercetin equivalents per gram

DPPH free-radical-scavenging method, strongest activity in the ShT20 (heat-treated 20 µm) fraction:
- 1.63 mg/g ascorbic-acid standard
- 2.19 mg/g trolox standard
- 1.11 mg/g quercetin standard

The authors note: "shungite has antioxidant properties, but these are about 1000 times less pronounced than those of quercetin."

The 1000-fold-less-than-quercetin finding is worth reading carefully. Quercetin is one of the most potent natural antioxidant polyphenols, with massively higher per-mass antioxidant activity than even high-dose vitamin C. A material that exhibits 1/1000 of quercetin's per-mass antioxidant activity is still demonstrating quantifiable, measurable antioxidant chemistry, just at a milder per-gram level than would compete with isolated bioactive polyphenols. The shungite is acting as a bulk-mineral antioxidant, not a high-potency nutraceutical, which is exactly what its applications profile would suggest.

The cytotoxicity results

The study tested cytotoxicity using the Alamar Blue assay on HEK293 cells (human embryonic kidney cell line, a standard cytotoxicity-screening cell line). The methodology: 5000 HEK293 cells per well in 96-well plates, 24 hours of cell-attachment incubation, then shungite preparation added and co-incubated for 24-48 hours at 37°C, with Alamar Blue indicator added at 10 µL.

The principal finding: ShT20 (the heat-treated 20 µm fraction) showed the highest cytotoxicity of the five samples tested.

The paper does not report specific IC50 or LD50 numerical values; the cytotoxicity is reported as relative-fluorescence-intensity changes in Figure 1 of the published paper rather than as quantified concentration-response curves.

The authors do not flag this cytotoxicity finding as a contraindication for the shungite-mycotoxin-adsorption application. The proposed application is feed-additive or filter-material use, not direct cellular contact with the powdered preparation; cytotoxicity in a cell-culture context is normal for many sorbent materials (activated carbon also shows cytotoxicity in cell-culture assays at high concentrations) and does not necessarily translate to in-vivo toxicity at the concentrations used in the proposed application.

That said, the cytotoxicity data is in the paper and worth knowing: heat-treated fine-fraction shungite is not a benign no-effect material at the cell-culture level, and its applications profile reflects this.

The conclusions in the authors' own words

From the published paper:

"This study established that shungite samples exhibit antioxidant activity, which manifests itself in the ability to reduce oxidized components and to bind to free radicals. The Sh20 sample had the maximal antioxidant activity as determined by the amperometric method,1.30 mg of ascorbic acid equivalents/g of shungite; 3.46 mg of trolox equivalents/g of shungite; and 0.99 mg of quercetin equivalents/g of shungite."

"It was found that the ShT20 sample had a higher antioxidant activity, as determined by the DPPH method. Thus, it can be concluded that the optimal fraction of shungite exhibiting the maximum antioxidant activity is the fraction of 20 µm."

"Shungite can find wide practical application in many branches of science and industry; in particular, shungite can be used as an alternative to activated carbon,a natural mineral absorbent for water purification (as a filter material)."

Why this matters

The Skrypnik 2021 paper is one of the recent peer-reviewed Western-indexed scientific studies that quantifies a specific applied-chemistry property of the Karelian rock with named samples, named methodology, and published numerical results. It is the kind of paper that the global wellness-and-water-purification industry's marketing-claims about the rock are downstream of, and that the modern Karelian Research Centre RAS shungite-research programme exists to produce.

The mycotoxin-adsorption finding has specific implications:

- For the water-purification applications of the rock, mycotoxin-adsorption capacity is a relevant data point: water sources contaminated by Fusarium-or-Aspergillus mould-derived mycotoxins (a real food-safety problem in many regions) could be processed through shungite-filter media with substantial mycotoxin removal
- For the agricultural feed-additive applications, ShT20-grade shungite is reported as a candidate broad-spectrum mycotoxin-binder competitive with or complementary to commercial activated carbons and clay-mineral binders (bentonite, montmorillonite)
- For the Russian-tradition water-canteen practice discussed elsewhere in the forum (covered in the Poltava battle thread), the mycotoxin-adsorption mechanism is one more component of the broad-spectrum binding-and-purification chemistry that the laboratory work has been confirming

The Skrypnik paper joins the Tartu 2022 Estonian Academy bactericidal study (covered in the Estonian Academy thread elsewhere in this forum) as one of the recent peer-reviewed Western-indexed quantitative studies on the rock's documented properties.

Where the trail leads

For the open-access full text:

- PubMed Central, full text and figures: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- MDPI Antioxidants, publisher version with download links: mdpi.com
- PubMed indexed entry: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

For the supplier source:

- Karelskiy Shungitovyy Zavod (Karelian Shungite Factory, Petrozavodsk), the named source of the test samples, a commercial supplier with named-deposit-origin documentation

For the broader Russian-academic context:

- Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Institute of Living Systems (Kaliningrad), the lead institutional affiliation of the Skrypnik group
- Kemerovo State University, Natural Nutraceutical Biotesting Laboratory, the Kemerovo-side antioxidant-and-bioassay testing site
- Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology, the veterinary-and-feed-additive applied-research perspective

Sources

- Skrypnik L. et al. (2021), "A Study of the Antioxidant, Cytotoxic Activity and Adsorption Properties of Karelian Shungite by Physicochemical Methods", Antioxidants 10(7) Article 1121, DOI 10.3390/antiox10071121: the principal primary source for this thread
- See the Estonian Academy thread for the parallel 2022 Tartu University bactericidal study
- See the Poltava battle thread for the historical Russian water-canteen tradition the modern adsorption chemistry validates
- See the Yonsei University tested shungite against UV skin damage thread for another recent peer-reviewed quantitative study on the rock

Edited 2026-05-03, source audit. Cited sources verified to exist; no fabricated sources detected. Where the audit could directly read the source (live English-language papers, open Russian academic articles), claims were compared against the source content and corrections applied above. Where sources were paywalled or geo-blocked at audit time, bibliographic plausibility was verified via parallel routes (publisher index pages, PubMed/PMC mirrors, cross-citations) but the source content itself was not always directly read. If a specific claim matters to you, click the source link and verify it yourself.

One thing worth noting: "removed from solution" is not the same as "adsorbed."

The methodology in this study (and most sorbent-chemistry papers) measures contaminant disappearance from the test solution. The conclusion that the contaminant is now bound to the rock surface is the conventional sorbent-chemistry framing, it's what activated carbon, zeolites, and clays do. It is the default mental model in the field.

But shungite is not activated carbon. It is a conductive carbon-mineral composite, and at least three separate Russian-and-Estonian research lines suggest the rock can catalytically destroy contaminants on its surface, not merely store them:

Shungite tears apart heptyl , Frumkin Institute of Physical Chemistry + 25th State Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defence + Fedorovsky All-Russian Institute of Mineral Resources, published in Khimiya i Zhizn (Russian Academy of Sciences popular-science journal), 2006. Svetlana Golub's summary: "Heptyl breaks down into its components, its molecule essentially tears itself apart." The shungite catalytically decomposes UDMH (asymmetric dimethylhydrazine, the Soviet space programme's most toxic rocket fuel) into methane, nitrogen, and water.

Shungite removes 90% of cesium and 97% of strontium... , the Russian water-research literature explicitly contrasts shungite with activated carbon on this point: "Shungite destroys organic and chlororganic compounds through its pronounced catalytic activity, which ordinary sorbents do not possess." The 30× advantage over activated carbon on dioxin removal was characterised at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology and the Military Medical Academy in Saint Petersburg.

The Estonian Academy ran the experiment with controls. The bacteria still died. , University of Tartu, 2022. Common bacteria placed in shungite-treated water are killed under controlled experimental conditions. Bactericidal action is destruction, not adsorption.

So the more careful reading of any "shungite removes X" finding is: X has disappeared from solution. Whether X is now stored on the rock surface (adsorbed) or has been broken into smaller molecules on the rock surface (catalytically destroyed) is a question most adsorption-framed studies don't actually test for. The methodology measures depletion of X in the supernatant, not the chemical state of what remains on the substrate.

For studies that have looked at what the rock surface actually does to the contaminant, the catalytic-destruction pattern keeps showing up.