Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 22, Issue 12, 2018

Background: Biodegradable antimicrobial materials for food packaging applications are in great demand by the food industry and society alike for the purposes of extending food shelf life, thus reducing the environmental impacts associated with synthetic plastics. Among the natural and non-toxic active compounds available, essential oils and their major components have been widely studied due to their antioxidant and anti Read More

Background: The search for a drug delivery system is a highly desirable target when toxic drugs are considered (e.g. chemotherapeutics) or when the site of action of a drug is difficult to approach due to the pharmacokinetic profile of the chosen therapeutic agent. Objective: Among the different delivery systems, those based on natural or semi-synthetic polysaccharides are very promising, due to their biocompatibility an Read More

Background: Regenerative medicine deals with developing strategies to repair or substitute organ or tissue functionality; it involves any combination of specific cell types, engineered polymeric biomaterials with biochemical inducers to promote cell adhesion, migration, growth, and differentiation to restore physiological tissue function, and to stimulate regeneration of damaged and previously irreparable organs. Nan Read More

Increased awareness to eco-friendliness and finite petroleum resources trigger growing interest in maximizing the use of low environmental impact and renewable materials. In the last decades, lignocellulosic based materials at the nanoscale level have attracted the attention of research and industry, due to their renewable nature and their abundant availability, their high reactivity surface and functionality, their low density a Read More

Background: Natural polysaccharides such as alginates, pectins, and chitins, possess a wide versatility in addition to the variability of the typical structural features of polysaccharides, as they include amino-, amido-, carboxylic acid, and esters groups. Objective: These functional groups can be exploited to graft specific moieties and macromolecules, thus tailoring the specific characteristics when envisioning improved functio Read More

The industrial interest for microencapsulation techniques to produce innovative materials has increased in the last years. Microencapsulation shows several advantages for textile industries since active compounds, such as vitamins, essential oils, antimicrobials and/or antibiotics can be isolated to protect them from environment factors (oxygen, light, moisture and temperature). Microcapsules are also used for the controlled releas Read More

Background: β-glucans are naturally occurred polysaccharides of glucose units, present in the cell wall of various living organisms such as bacteria, yeast, fungus and plants, in particular cereals (oat and barley). β-glucans are considered as GRAS and are currently used as texturing agents in the food industry. Alternative applications of β- glucan are the development of bio-based by using isolated β-glucan or in combination with ot Read More