Coffee agro-waste is a potential source of polyphenols with antioxidant activity and application in the food and cosmetic trades. The usage of these byproducts persists as a challenge in the industrial landscape due to their high content of purported toxic substances hindering management. This study presents a green extractive process using pulsed electric field (PEF) and microwave assisted extraction (MAE) to recover polyphenols from coffee parchment and two varieties of pulp, posing quick processing times and the use of water as the only solvent. The performance of this process with regard to the bioactivity was assessed through the Folin-Ciocalteu assay, total flavonoid content, DPPH, ABTS and FRAP antioxidant tests. The phenolic composition of the extracts was also determined through HPLC-MS and quantified through HPLC-DAD. When compared to treatment controls, PEF + MAE treated samples presented enhanced yields of total phenolic content and radical scavenging activity in all analyzed residues (Tukey test significance: 95%). The chromatographic studies reveal the presence of caffeic acid on the three analyzed by-products. The HPLC-DAD caffeic acid quantification validated that a combination of MAE + PEF treatment in yellow coffee pulp had the highest caffeic acid concentration of all studied extraction methods.
Plastics have become an essential part of the modern world thanks to their appealing physical and chemical properties as well as their low production cost. The most common type of polymers used for plastic account for 90% of the total production and are made from petroleum-based nonrenewable resources. Concerns over the sustainability of the current production model and the environmental implications of traditional plastics have fueled the demand for greener formulations and alternatives. In the last decade, new plastics manufactured from renewable sources and biological processes have emerged from research and have been established as a commercially viable solution with less adverse effects. Nevertheless, economic and legislative challenges for biobased plastics hinder their widespread implementation. This review summarizes the history of plastics over the last century, including the most relevant bioplastics and production methods, the environmental impact and mitigation of the adverse effects of conventional and emerging plastics, and the regulatory landscape that renewable and recyclable bioplastics face to reach a sustainable future.
Over the past years, biomaterials-based nano cues with multi-functional characteristics have been engineered with high interest. The ease in fine tunability with maintained compliance makes an array of nano-bio materials supreme candidates for the biomedical sector of the modern world. Moreover, the multi-functional dimensions of nano-bio elements also help to maintain or even improve the patients' life quality most securely by lowering or diminishing the adverse effects of in practice therapeutic modalities. Therefore, engineering highly efficient, reliable, compatible, and recyclable biomaterials-based novel corrective cues with multipurpose applications is essential and a core demand to tackle many human health-related challenges, e.g., the current COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, robust engineering design and properly exploited nano-bio materials deliver wide-ranging openings for experimentation in the field of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary scientific research. In this context, herein, it is reviewed the applications and potential on tissue engineering and therapeutics of COVID-19 of several biomaterials. Following a brief introduction is a discussion of the drug delivery routes and mechanisms of biomaterials-based nano cues with suitable examples. The second half of the review focuses on the mainstream applications changing the dynamics of 21st century materials. In the end, current challenges and recommendations are given for a healthy and foreseeable future.
