The efficient removal of congo red and ciprofloxacin by peony seeds shell activated carbon with ultra-high specific surface area.

Preparation of high-performance activated carbon from agroforestry waste biomass can effectively improve the shortcomings of traditional biomass carbon performance. Using the waste biomass peony seeds shell (PSS) as the precursors in this study, high performance activated carbon was prepared by the KOH two-step activation method and used to remove congo red (CR) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) in water pollution. The obtained PSS-based activated carbons (PSACs) were characterized by SEM, EDS, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm, FTIR, and XRD methods. The results showed that the activated carbon at 700 °C (PSAC-700) had an ultra-high specific surface area (2980.96 m2/g), excellent micropore volume (1.12 cm3/g), and abundant surface functional groups. The results of adsorption performance revealed that PSAC-700 exhibited excellent adsorption capacity for CR (qmax = 2003.2 mg/g) and CIP (qmax = 782.3 mg/g), which was superior to the carbon-based adsorbents reported reviously in the literature. Langmuir model could well describe the adsorption process of PSACs for CR and CIP, indicating that the pollutant molecules were uniformly adsorbed on the surface monolayer. The regeneration experiment suggested that after three cycles, the adsorption capacities of PSAC-700 for CR and CIP reached 1814 mg/g and 697 mg/g, respectively, with good repeatability. The preparation of PSAC-700 in this study has high adsorption capacity and strong application, which is an ideal material for wastewater purification adsorbent and has broad application prospect.

Ultrasonic-assisted extraction and adsorption separation: Large-scale preparation of trans-ε-Viniferin, suffruficosol B and trans-Gnetin H for the first time.

In this study, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the large-scale extraction, enrichment, and separation of suffruticosol B (SB), trans-ε-Viniferin (TV), trans-gnetin H (TG) from oil tree peony seeds shell (PSS) was successfully constructed. The ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE), macroporous adsorption resin (MAR), and column chromatography (CC) were employed to extract, enrich and separate SB, TV and TG from PSS, and the conditions were optimized. The results implied that SB (1.6937 g), TV (0.5884 g) and TG (3.8786 g) with the purity of 99.67 %, 99.32 % and 98.54 %, respectively, were obtained after the extraction, enrichment and separation. The total yields of the SB, TV and TG were 0.61 mg/g, 0.02 mg/g and 6.64 mg/g with the total extraction rates at 70.55 %, 69.77 % and 78.36 %, respectively. This is the first report on the large-scale extraction, enrichment and separation of oligostilbenes. The SOP in this paper could produce high purity SB, TV and TG, and provide a new idea for PSS as a new oligostilbene resource. The study expands the new development and research field of PSS and provides theoretical support for the green utilization of oil tree peony.

Could peony seeds oil become a high-quality edible vegetable oil? The nutritional and phytochemistry profiles, extraction, health benefits, safety and value-added-products.

Edible oil provides essential nutrients for human body and plays a very important role in human health. Looking for edible oil resource plants with high content and high-quality oil plays an important role in ensuring the adequate supply of edible oil. Peony seeds oil (PSO) was approved as a new resource food and became an edible vegetable oil for its rich content of fatty acids, total unsaturated fatty acids, linoleic acid and linolenic acid. In addition, PSO also contains high contents of squalene, tocopherol, phytosterol and plant polyphenol. PSO has been reported to present various health benefits including antioxidation, blood lipid reduction, hepatoprotection, immunity regulation, blood sugar control, neuroprotection, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic activity, therapeutic effects on scald, uvioresistant effects and so on. Toxicity studies showed PSO had great safety without any toxic and side effects, and could be processed to produce PSO microcapsule, microemulsion, nanoemulsion gel, biscuit, daily chemical products, soft capsule and other high value-added-products. Therefore, the present article aims to summarize the research findings regarding to the nutritional and phytochemistry profiles, the extraction methods, health benefits, safety and the high value-added-products of PSO. These informations laid a good foundation for the in-depth research and development of PSO, and also proved that PSO was a high-quality edible vegetable oil with health value. With the deepening of research, the studies on PSO will be more and more comprehensive. It believes that PSO will become an important functional edible oil, and will be more widely used as an important functional food and linolenic acid supplement.

Steam explosion pretreatment of Achyranthis bidentatae radix: Modified polysaccharide and its antioxidant activities.

Steam explosion technology was employed for the pretreatment of Achyranthis bidentatae radix (ABR) under mild conditions, followed by the polysaccharide extraction. An increase in the extraction yield and uronic acid content of crude polysaccharide were detected, along with a decrease in the protein content induced by the steam explosion. The monosaccharide analysis showed the main compositional modification of polysaccharide is the increase in the proportion of galacturonic acid, galactose, and arabinose. It is consistent with the discriminant analysis of the FT-IR and UV-vis spectra. These structural modifications of crude polysaccharide caused by the steam explosion pretreatment (SEP) resulted in the significant increases in their antioxidant activities in vitro and in vivo. Strong correlations were observed between the pretreatment conditions and the changes in the structural characteristics and antioxidant activities of Achyranthis bidentatae radix polysaccharides (ABPS).

Optimization of polysaccharide process from Fructus corni with box-behnken design and antioxidant capacity.

In the present study, the ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) process of polysaccharide from Fructus corni (FCP) was opitimized using the Box-Behnken design (BBD). The main parameters including ultrasound time (min), temperature (oC) and solvent to raw material ratio (mL/g) were chosen as the process variables for the optimization of UAE process. The results of analysis of variance indicated that the equation obtained from the experiments could represent the data and the predicted responses satisfactorily. The optimum conditons obtained by BBD were ultrasonic time (51min), temperature (69oC) and solvent to solid ratio (20mL/g) with actual yield (12.68±0.16%), which was good agreement with value predicted by the model. The antioxidant properties of FCP were assessed in vitro based on scavenging effect of the DPPH radical, hydroxyl radical and super oxide radical tests. The FCP possessed strong antioxidant abilities on DPPH and super oxide radical at the high concentration. The results on hydroxyl radical demonstrated that FCP exhibited high scavenging effect when the concentration was over 3000µg/mL. The findings suggested that the FCP had antioxidant capacities and could be developed as a source of natural antioxidants and functional food material.

Characterization and macrophage immunomodulatory activity of two polysaccharides from the flowers of Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.

Paeonia suffruticosa Andr. has a long history of cultivation in China and its flower possesses high nutritional and medicinal value. Characterization and macrophage immunomodulatory activity of the two polysaccharides from the flowers of Paeonia suffruticosa Andr., PSAP-1 and PSAP-2, purified by anion exchange chromatography followed by size exclusion chromatography, were investigated in the present study. Results showed that PSAP-1, with a molecular weight of 155 kDa, was mainly composed of glucuronic acid, glucose, arabinose and galactose with molar percentages of 0.83, 11.53, 18.98 and 68.96% respectively, and PSAP-2, with a molecular weight of 210 kDa, consisted of rhamnose, galacturonic acid, glucose, arabinose and galactose with molar percentages of 9.13, 8.35, 12.20, 14.75 and 55.57% respectively. Immunostimulatory activity evaluation in vitro revealed that the PSAP-1 and PSAP-2 could significantly stimulate the proliferation of Raw264.7 cells in dose-dependent manner and further activate Raw264.7 cells by releasing immunoactive molecules such as nitric oxide, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-6. In addition, PSAP-2 had higher immunomodulatory activity than PSAP-1. The above results suggested that both PSAP-1 and PSAP-2 had potent immunostimulatory activity and could be explored as a potential natural immunomodulatory agent in medicine or functional food fields.

[Response of Nostoc flageliforme cell to Cu2+, Cr2+ and Pb2+ stress].

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the effects of Cu2+, Cr2+ and Pb2+ stress on Nostoc flagelliforme cell. METHODS: The response of Nostoc flagelliforme cell was analyzed under the stress. The modified BG11 culture medium containing different heavy metal ions of 0, 0.1, 1.0, 10, 100 mg/L was used to cultivate Nostoc flagelliforme cell at 25 degrees C and light intensity of 80 micromol/(m x s). Electrolyte leakage, the activities of superoxide dismutase, the content of malondialdehyde, proline, soluble protein and trehalose were analyzed. RESULTS: Under 1 - 100 mg/L Cu2+, Cr2+ and Pb2+ stress, electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde contents in Nostoc flagelliforme cell were higher than those in the control group during heavy metal ions stress. Meanwhile, superoxide dismutase activity increased slightly under 10 mg/L, but was lower afterwards. The contents of proline, soluble protein and trehalose increased under 10 mg/L heavy metal ions stress, while declined under extreme heavy metal ions stress (100 mg/L). CONCLUSION: Nostoc flagelliforme cell has resistance to low heavy metal ions stress, but is damaged badly under extreme heavy metal ions stress.