Phenolic Compounds From Brewer's Spent Grains:Toward Green Recovery Methods and Applications in the Cosmetic Industry

Brewers' spent grain (BSG) is the main by-product derived from the brewing industry, where it accounts for 85% of the total waste generated. The total annual production worldwide of this waste is 39 million tons. This lignocellulosic material is traditionally used as cattle feed and sold at a low retail price (~USD 45.00 per ton). However, efforts for the revalorization of this by-product are emerging since research has established that it can be used as a low-cost source of bioactive molecules and commodity chemicals that can bring value to integral biorefinery ventures. Among commodities, phenolic compounds have attracted attention as added-value products due to their antioxidant properties with applications in the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries. These phytochemicals have been associated with antiaging and anticancer activities that have potential applications on cosmetic products. This mini-review summarizes the most relevant extraction techniques used for the recovery of phenolic compounds from BSG while discussing their advantages and shortcomings and the potential applications from BSG bioactive extracts in the cosmetic industry and their reported beneficial effects. This mini-review also makes a brief comment on the role of phenolic compounds extraction in the economic feasibility of an integral BSG biorefinery.</p

Environmental impact of emerging contaminants from battery waste:A mini review

The widespread consumption of electronic devices has made spent batteries an ongoing economic and ecological concern with a compound annual growth rate of up to 8% during 2018, and expected to reach between 18% and 30% to 2030. There is a lack of regulations for the proper storage and management of waste streams that enables their accumulation in open settings and the leakage of hazardous substances into the environment on landfill settings. In addition, recent trends in battery manufacture dictate the use of emerging materials like ionic liquids for electrolytes and nanostructures for cathodes to enhance their energetic properties and lifespan. The full impact of novel battery compounds on the environment is still uncertain and could cause further hindrances in recycling and containment efforts. Currently, only a handful of countries are able to recycle mass-produced lithium batteries, accounting for only 5% of the total waste of the total more than 345,000 tons in 2018. This mini review aims to integrate currently reported and emerging contaminants present on batteries, their potential environmental impact, and current strategies for their detection as evidence for policy and regulation.</p

Modern World Applications for Nano-Bio Materials:Tissue Engineering and COVID-19

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.</p

Modern World Applications for Nano-Bio Materials:Tissue Engineering and COVID-19

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.</p

Detection and Tertiary Treatment Technologies of Poly-and Perfluoroalkyl Substances in Wastewater Treatment Plants

PFAS are a very diverse group of anthropogenic chemicals used in various consumer and industrial products. The properties that characterize are their low degradability as well as their resistance to water, oil and heat. This results in their high persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation in different organisms, causing many adverse effects on the environment as well as in human health. Some of their effects remain unknown to this day. As there are thousands of registered PFAS, it is difficult to apply traditional technologies for an efficient removal and detection for all. This has made it difficult for wastewater treatment plants to remove or degrade PFAS before discharging the effluents into the environment. Also, monitoring these contaminants depends mostly on chromatography-based methods, which require expensive equipment and consumables, making it difficult to detect PFAS in the environment. The detection of PFAS in the environment, and the development of technologies to be implemented in tertiary treatment of wastewater treatment plants are topics of high concern. This study focuses on analyzing and discussing the mechanisms of occurrence, migration, transformation, and fate of PFAS in the environment, as well the main adverse effects in the environment and human health. The following work reviews the recent advances in the development of PFAS detection technologies (biosensors, electrochemical sensors, microfluidic devices), and removal/degradation methods (electrochemical degradation, enzymatic transformation, advanced oxidation, photocatalytic degradation). Understanding the risks to public health and identifying the routes of production, transportation, exposure to PFAS is extremely important to implement regulations for the detection and removal of PFAS in wastewater and the environment.This work is part of the project entitled “Contaminantes emergentes y prioritarios en las aguas reutilizadas en agricultura: riesgos y efectos en suelos, producción agrícola y entorno ambiental” funded by CSIC-Tecnológico de Monterrey under i-Link + program (LINKB20030).Peer reviewe

Infrared Spectroscopic Characterization of Some Synthetic Glycosides with Chromogenic Groups for Detection of Exo-Glycosidase Activity

A relevant aspect of carbohydrate analysis is the characterization of a helpful group of organic substrates widely used as target molecules to evaluate exo-glycosidase activities. Synthetic glycosides with chromogenic groups are relevant due to the facility and quickness to use them as a source of substrates. These can then be detected by rapid and straightforward colorimetric methods, employing just a piece of spectrophotometer equipment. The main characteristic of these organic substrates is the presence of an enzyme-hydrolyzable bond between a monosaccharide and aromatic heterocycle rings or phenyl rings with an o- or p-nitro activating substitution. These organic substrates are analytically convenient for the evaluation of the hydrolytic enzymes such as a-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, β-galactosidase, and β-arabinofuranosidase. Given the importance of carbohydrate chemistry, these organic substrates have been analyzed using the vibrational technique attenuated total reflection (ATR)-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.</p

Infrared Spectroscopic Characterization of Some Synthetic Glycosides with Chromogenic Groups for Detection of Exo-Glycosidase Activity

A relevant aspect of carbohydrate analysis is the characterization of a helpful group of organic substrates widely used as target molecules to evaluate exo-glycosidase activities. Synthetic glycosides with chromogenic groups are relevant due to the facility and quickness to use them as a source of substrates. These can then be detected by rapid and straightforward colorimetric methods, employing just a piece of spectrophotometer equipment. The main characteristic of these organic substrates is the presence of an enzyme-hydrolyzable bond between a monosaccharide and aromatic heterocycle rings or phenyl rings with an o- or p-nitro activating substitution. These organic substrates are analytically convenient for the evaluation of the hydrolytic enzymes such as a-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, β-galactosidase, and β-arabinofuranosidase. Given the importance of carbohydrate chemistry, these organic substrates have been analyzed using the vibrational technique attenuated total reflection (ATR)-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.</p

Biomass Production and Partial Characterization of Agavinase from Aspergillus kawachii via Submerged Fermentation:New Insights for a Sustainable Future

Aspergillus kawachii is a filamentous fungus widely used in the production of Japanese alcoholic and brewing beverages due to its enhanced saccharification capacity of structural polysaccharides such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin. Agavin is a reserve polysaccharide in agave plants, which may be used as a carbon source for fungal metabolites production. A submerged fermentation was carried out with A. kawachii with glucose, saccharose, and agavin as a carbon source to study the production of the enzyme agavinase. Biomass production, pH, and total sugars were measured during the cultivation to analyze the fungal growth and the feasibility of the secretion of agavinase. The enzyme activity to detect agavinase was carried out using agavin and fractions of crude culture broths from the three substrates. A chromatography of molecular size exclusion was applied to desalt and separate the enzyme extract from the rest of the components to identify agavin activity. Agavin activity was not detected in glucose extracts; low values were shown in the sucrose extract and were better for the agavin extracts. Agavinase is demonstrated to be produced inductively by Aspergillus kawachii in agavinrich media, and the glucose as substrate evidenced the absence of agavinase, and then it is not a constitutive enzyme for the fungus.</p

Biomass Production and Partial Characterization of Agavinase from Aspergillus kawachii via Submerged Fermentation:New Insights for a Sustainable Future

Aspergillus kawachii is a filamentous fungus widely used in the production of Japanese alcoholic and brewing beverages due to its enhanced saccharification capacity of structural polysaccharides such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin. Agavin is a reserve polysaccharide in agave plants, which may be used as a carbon source for fungal metabolites production. A submerged fermentation was carried out with A. kawachii with glucose, saccharose, and agavin as a carbon source to study the production of the enzyme agavinase. Biomass production, pH, and total sugars were measured during the cultivation to analyze the fungal growth and the feasibility of the secretion of agavinase. The enzyme activity to detect agavinase was carried out using agavin and fractions of crude culture broths from the three substrates. A chromatography of molecular size exclusion was applied to desalt and separate the enzyme extract from the rest of the components to identify agavin activity. Agavin activity was not detected in glucose extracts; low values were shown in the sucrose extract and were better for the agavin extracts. Agavinase is demonstrated to be produced inductively by Aspergillus kawachii in agavinrich media, and the glucose as substrate evidenced the absence of agavinase, and then it is not a constitutive enzyme for the fungus.</p