Heavy Metal Contamination in Food: The Perspective of the Sub-Saharan Informal Food Trade

Food safety is often threatened by the intended or unintended introduction of contaminants. Street foods are susceptible to microbial, chemical and physical contaminants. Due to their ubiquitous existence in the environment, heavy metals are among the majority of food material contaminants and they are believed to have carcinogenic properties. Heavy metals have been a source of contamination in the informal food value chain mainly due to their bioaccumulation and existence in voluminous amounts. Several factors account for the rate of contamination and the continued failure to prevent it. Carcinogens such as lead and arsenic are often present in high levels in some vended foodstuffs, and their prolonged ingestion could have injurious effects on consumer health. Heavy metal contamination in street-vended foods sometimes occurs as a result of leaching from poorly designed or old and inadequately cleaned utensils. Moreover, aluminium pots used in cooking may leach aluminium ions, especially when acidic foods such as grains and seafood are cooked

Making Global Green Connections: The Importance of Green Chemistry Summer School for Sustainable Development

This GCPSS was held both in Venice and online, celebrating the end of uncertainty surrounding COVID-19-related travel restrictions. 161 postgraduate students attended (50 in-person and 111 online) from 45 different countries. Scientific lectures and other presentations from sponsors and invited speakers delivered engaging talks and motivated participants to do their part in promoting a sustainable future. Postgraduate students exchanged their knowledge through high-quality posters, which revealed their commitment to designing innovative green solutions. Students from diverse backgrounds were able to learn from each other and returned to their home countries inspired to advocate for the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It was a great opportunity to network with people from a variety of cultures and speak the common language of science. The 14th GCPSS successfully brought together like-minded scientists from around the world who all share the same goal of promoting the field of green chemistry. Hence, we believe that the GCPSS successfully achieved another goal set for the 14th edition. Therefore, the GCPSS must continue in the years to come to tirelessly train young green chemists. So that the world will one day have more science leaders and science advocates with green chemistry minds for building a sustainable society. Wholeheartedly, we were a few young green chemists who got lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend the 14th GCPSS. However, there are thousands, if not millions, of young chemists from around the globe, who still wait to have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Therefore, we hope that more sponsors will join Green Sciences for Sustainable Development Foundation (GSSDF), IUPAC Interdivisional Committee on Green Chemistry for Sustainable Development (ICGCSD), IUPAC, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), PhosAgro, Zhejiang NHU Co., Ltd., BRACCO Group, SASOL, and GreeNovator in the future to support the attendance of more young green chemists, particularly from the Global South, to join the next editions of the GCPSS

A Global Analysis of Research Outputs on Neurotoxicants from 2011–2020: Adverse Effects on Humans and the Environment

Neurotoxicants are detrimental to the mammalian nervous system at higher concentrations after exposure, and could result in several neurological abnormalities, especially on the nervous and reproductive systems, and sometimes death. The present study, therefore, aimed to evaluate the research growth on neurotoxicants and their effects on humans and the environment over the last decade from 2011 to 2020. Data on this subject were obtained from the SCI-Expanded of Web of Science, and analyses were performed on the retrieved data in RStudio. The number of published documents fluctuated over the studied years, with an annual growth rate of 4.46%, and the highest number of publications were recorded in 2020 (n = 40). Single authored documents, documents per author, authors per documents, and collaboration index were 24, 0.219, 4.57, and 4.87, respectively. Networks of collaboration in this study were noticeable among authors, institutions, and countries; thus, making efforts to strengthen networking globally would be a good idea. Results from this study also show that the growing trend of research in the field is quite encouraging, thus providing future directions to upcoming researchers, and contributes immensely to reducing the exposure and several disorders linked to these neurotoxicants globally

Application of Pineapple Waste to the Removal of Toxic Contaminants: A Review

The presence of pollutants in large swaths of water is among the most pressing environmental issues of our time. This is mainly due to the inappropriate disposal of industrial sewerage into nearby water supplies and the production of a broad range of potentially hazardous contaminants. Pineapple is a fruit mainly grown in tropical regions. Refuse production begins with the collection of raw materials and continues prior to being refined. Pineapple processing industries generate waste (peel, core, pomace, and crown) that is high in bioactive compounds. The byproducts often include more valuable compounds with greater nutritional and therapeutic value than the final product. This review focuses on the application of pineapple and components, adsorbent synthesized from pineapple for the removal of pollutants

Synthesis, crystal structure with free radical scavenging activity and theoretical studies of Schiff bases derived from 1-naphthylamine, 2,6-diisopropylaniline, and substituted benzaldehyde

Three Schiff bases 1-(4-chlorophenyl)-N-(naphthalen-1-yl)methanimine (1), 1-(4-methoxy phenyl)-N-(naphthalen-1-yl)methanimine (2), and 1-(4-chlorophenyl)-N-(2,6-diisopropyl phenyl)methanimine (3) were synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, 1H and 13C NMR, FT-IR and UV-Visible spectroscopic techniques. The crystal structure of compound 3 was obtained and it revealed that the compound crystallized in a monoclinic space group P21/n and there exists an intermolecular hydrogen bond in a phenyl-imine form with C-H⋯N. Crystal data for C19H22ClN: a = 7.28280(10) Å, b = 9.94270(10) Å, c = 24.0413(2) Å, β = 97.0120(10)°, V = 1727.83(3) Å3, Z = 4, μ(Mo Kα) = 0.215 mm-1, Dcalc = 1.1526 g/cm3, 14038 reflections measured (12.42° ≤ 2Θ ≤ 52.74°), 3448 unique (Rint = 0.0223, Rsigma = 0.0182) which were used in all calculations. The final R1 was 0.0337 (I≥2u(I)) and wR2 was 0.0927 (all data). The free radical scavenging activities of all three compounds were assayed using DPPH, FRAP, and OH assays. According to results obtained, compound 2 shows effective DPPH- (IC50 = 22.69±0.14 μg/mL), FRAP+ (IC50 = 28.44±0.12 μg/mL), and OH- (IC50 = 27.97±0.16 μg/mL) scavenging activities compared with compounds 1 and 3 but less than standard antioxidant compound Trolox (TRO). Additionally, theoretical calculations for the three complexes were performed by using density functional theory (DFT) calculations at the B3LYP/6-31++G(2d,2p) level in the ground state to obtain an optimized geometrical structure and to perform an electronic, molecular electronic potential surface and natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis. The geometrical calculation obtained was found to be consistent with the experimental geometry. Further analysis was conducted using the in silico technique to predict the drug likeness, molecular and ADME properties of these molecules