Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)

Grafting of organosilane derived from 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane and thiourea onto magnesium phyllosilicate by sol-gel process and investigation of metal adsorption properties

A layered inorganic-organic magnesium silicate (Mg-GTPS-TU) has been successfully synthesized by using sol-gel based precursor under mild temperature conditions and a new silylaing agent (GTPS-TU) derived from 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GTPS) and thiourea (TU) as the silicon source The. hybrid material was characterized through elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometry, thermogravimetry, and carbon and silicon solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The result confirmed the attachment of organic functionality to the inorganic silicon network. The interlamellar distance for the hybrid material was found to be 18.8 angstrom. Metal adsorption characteristics follows Cr(III) >Mn(II)>Zn(II) with more affinity towards Cr(Ill) in dilute aqueous solution. Evaluation of thermodynamic parameters Delta H and Delta S for Cr(III) were found to be 25.44 J mol(-1) and 79.9 J mol(-1) K(-1), respectively, indicating adsorption process to be endothermic in nature. The negative value of Delta G indicated the feasibility and spontaneity of ongoing adsorption process at relatively higher temperature. The presence of multiple coordination sites in the attached organic functionality expresses the potentiality of the hybrid material containing new silylating agent for heavy cation removal from ecosystem. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.182820102017Central Instrumentation Facility (CIF)-TEQIP, BIT, Mesr

Unzipping Carbon Nanotubes at High Impact

The way nanostructures behave and mechanically respond to high impact collision is a topic of intrigue. For anisotropic nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes, this response will be complicated based on the impact geometry. Here we report the result of hypervelocity impact of nanotubes against solid targets and show that impact produces a large number of defects in the nanotubes, as well as rapid atom evaporation, leading to their unzipping along the nanotube axis. Fully atomistic reactive molecular dynamics simulations are used to gain further insights of the pathways and deformation and fracture mechanisms of nanotubes under high energy mechanical impact. Carbon nanotubes have been unzipped into graphene nanoribbons before using chemical treatments but here the instability of nanotubes against formation, fracture, and unzipping is revealed purely through mechanical impact. defec