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A chloroform bulk liquid membrane and Aliquat 336 ionic liquid as a carrier (ligand) were used to remove aspartame (ASP) from an aqueous solution. Experiments were performed in a tube-in-tube setup, under mechanical stirring of inner tube (200 rpm), for 7 h. The inner tube contained a stripping phase (an aqueous solution of HCl) and the outer tube the liquid membrane at the bottom and a feed phase (an aqueous solution of ASP and NaOH) at the top. Maximum extraction, stripping, and recovery efficiencies of ASP of 97.0 %, 75.4 %, and 73.1 % were obtained under the following working conditions: initial concentrations of ASP and NaOH in the feed phase of 10(-4) mol/L and 10(-2) mol/L, respectively, initial concentration of Aliquat 336 ligand in the chloroform membrane of 10(-2) mol/L, and initial concentration of HCl in the stripping phase of 10(-2) mol/L. A characteristic kinetic model of consecutive irreversible first-order reactions was used to predict ASP concentrations in the phases of the membrane system under optimal conditions. The extraction and stripping rate constants (k(1) = 2.48 x 10-4 s(-1) and k(2) = 0.574 x 10-4 s(-1)), i.e., the model parameters determined from experimental data, suggested that the chemical reaction occurring at the interface between the membrane and stripping phase was the rate-limiting step in the mass transfer of ASP.

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This paper aimed to investigate the bioactive compounds in the dry powder residue of honeysuckle cultivars after extracting the juice. Based on the analyses performed on the total content of phenolic compounds, flavonoids, anthocyanins, tannins, carotenoids and vitamin C, the results indicated that dried Lonicera caerulea residue represented a rich source of phenolic compounds (8041.36 mg GAE 100 g(-1)), of which about 80% were tannins (6432.10 mg GAE 100 g(-1)). The flavonoid content varied around 2436.95 mg CE 100 g(-1). Vitamin C (185 mg 100 g(-1)), lycopene and beta-carotene (over 2.5 and 2.8 mg 100 g(-1), respectively) were also quantified. Among the phenolic acids, chlorogenic acid predominated (316 mg 100 g(-1)), followed by cryptochlorogenic acid (135 mg 100 g(-1)) and neochlorogenic acid (32 mg 100 g(-1)). Flavonoids were mainly represented by catechin (2594 mg 100 g(-1)) and anthocyanins (1442 mg 100 g(-1)). Similar amounts of epicatechin and rutin were measured (156 mg 100 g(-1) and 148 mg 100 g(-1)), while the isoquercetin concentration was below 15 mg 100 g(-1). In conclusion, the high level of phytocompounds and the diverse composition of dry Lonicera caerulea residue support its high nutraceutical value and high health-promoting potential.

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The main strategy of this study was to combine the traditional perspective of using medicinal extracts with polymeric scaffolds manufactured by an engineering approach to fabricate a potential dressing product with antimicrobial properties. Thus, chitosan-based membranes containing S. officinalis and H. perforatum extracts were developed and their suitability as novel dressing materials was investigated. The morphology of the chitosan-based films was assessed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the chemical structure characterization was performed via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The addition of the plant extracts increased the sorption capacity of the studied fluids, mainly at the membrane with S. officinalis extract. The membranes with 4% chitosan embedded with both plant extracts maintained their integrity after being immersed for 14 days in incubation media, especially in PBS. The antibacterial activities were determined by the modified Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method for Gram-positive (S. aureus ATCC 25923, MRSA ATCC 43300) and Gram-negative (E. coli ATCC 25922, P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853) microorganisms. The antibacterial property was enhanced by incorporating the plant extracts into chitosan films. The outcome of the study reveals that the obtained chitosan-based membranes are promising candidates to be used as a wound dressing due to their good physico-chemical and antimicrobial properties.

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Berries of three Romanian Lonicera caerulea cultivars 'Cera', 'Kami', and 'Loni', grown at the Research Institute for Fruit Growing, Pitesti, Romania, were analyzed between 2020 and 2022 in terms of chemical composition. The study aimed to determine the concentrations of some compounds with antioxidant activity, highlight the most valuable cultivar, encourage the consumption of honeysuckle berries, and indirectly stimulate growers' interest in this little-known species in Romania. Some phenolic compounds-lycopene, beta-carotene, and vitamin C-were quantified. As a result of the study, the 'Loni' cultivar's high total phenolic content, flavonoids, anthocyanins, vitamin C, lycopene, chlorogenic and neochlorogenic acids, catechin, and rutin are to be noted. 'Cera' cultivar had the highest cryptochlorogenic acid content, and 'Kami' summarized the highest carotenoid level. These characteristics indicated that the three honeysuckle cultivars' berries could have multiple uses, from fresh consumption, as part of a diet focused on maintaining human health, to being used as raw materials in the para-pharmaceutical industry, to obtain food supplements. The novelty characteristics and the nutritional value of its berries highlighted by this study have indicated that honeysuckle can become a crop of interest and profitability.

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The paper presents a study of the phenomena that take place at membrane system interfaces in the process of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) transport. The results were obtained in a bulk liquid membrane system using trioctylamine, tributylphosphate, trioctilphosphine oxide as carriers in chloroform. The main equilibriums that take place at the interface feed phase% membrane phase were identified and the diffusion coefficient of the indole-3-acetic add complex (DLS) and the extraction constant (Kex) were assessed. The influence of the chemical potential gradient on these parameters was considered.

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This work presents the efficacy of various green extraction methods used to ensure the optimal amount of antioxidant compounds extracted from vegetal material. The new developed extraction procedures are easy-to-use and have a low implementation cost providing health-safe and high-quality extracts (products). The complete characterization of the obtained extracts was performed by a HPLC method (quantification of antioxidant compounds) and the ORAC method (efficacy assessment). These methodologies have high potential in by-products industry, where managing the residues is an important step in increasing the technological process economic efficiency and mitigation of environmental impact and, moreover, can by further extended to other types of raw materials.

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A fast separation method for simultaneous determination of eleven organic acids was validated and applied to different commercial food items to evaluate their organic acids content. The present method gives detection limits between 0.04 and 4.65 mu g mL(-1), recovery values in real samples between 78.2 and 97.3% and relative standard deviation values for precision lower than 5%. All validation data were in acceptable range and prove the method's fit for purpose. The advantages of the method are the short runtime analysis (15 min), no preparation step for the samples before the injection combined with good sensitivity which recommends it for routine control analysis in food industries. Moreover, this methodology has high potential in drinks industry but can by further extended to other types of food items.

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Therapeutic benefits of phytochemicals are widespread, but the association of natural lipophilic and hydrophilic compounds in the same nanostructured delivery system represents a challenge that was not considered up to present. This work aimed to evaluate the effects of two plant-derived oils rich in omega-3 (rosehip oil Ro) and omega-6 (black caraway oil Bco) on the synthesis of marigold extract (ME) and azelaic acid (AzA) co -loaded nanostructured lipid carriers(NLC) and to determine its in vitro and in vivo anti-inflammatory action. The lipid core and surfactant shell guaranteed a high encapsulation efficiency of both water soluble -AM and lipid soluble -ME(93% entrapment for carotenoids and 83% for AM). A high degree of biocompatibility in the concentration range of 5-400 mu g/mL NLC-ME-AzA for 72 h of treatment was determined (i.e. at 400 mu g/mL the L929 cells displayed a proliferative effect with a cell viability of 110%). The co-presence of ME and AM in the same NLC was accompanied by a reduced expression of inflammatory IL-6 and IL-1 beta cytokines, as evidenced by ELISA method. The in vivo plestismometric method showed that paw edema was significantly reduced for 3 h following NLC-ME-AzA hydrogel treatment (0.006 mg ME and 26.2 mg AAz) in rats challenged with carrageenan.

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Indole-3-acetic acid is a growth phytohormone considered the most important representative of auxin class. This paper presents the assessment of some kinetic parameters in the process of transport of indole3-acetic acid taking into consideration the kinetic model of consecutive irreversible first order reactions. It was pursued the influence upon the process of parameters such as: feed phase concentration, stripping phase concentration in the presence of two type carriers: tributyl phosphate (TBP) and trioctylphosphine oxide (TOM), Depending on these transport parameters were calculated kinetics parameters such as: pseudo-first-order apparent membrane entrance and exit rate constants, the maximum flux at the entrance and exit out of the membrane. The highest values of the transport flux is obtained in the presence of carrier trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) at the concentration in the feed phase of 10(-4) indole-3-acetic acid and a concentration of 10(-2) moUL NaOH in the stripping phase.

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The growing scientific interest in exploitation of vegetable bioactives has raised a number of questions regarding their imminent presence in pharmaceutical formulations. This study intends to demonstrate that a dual combination between vegetable oil (e.g. thistle oil, safflower oil, sea buckthorn oil) and a carrot extract represents an optimal approach to formulate safe carrier systems that manifest cell regeneration effect and promising antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. Inclusion of both natural actives into lipid carriers imparted a strong negative charge on the nanocarrier surface (up to -45 mV) and displayed average sizes of 70 nm to 140 nm. The entrapment efficiency of carrot extract into nanostructured carriers ranged between 78.3 and 88.3%. The in vitro release study has demonstrated that the entrapment of the extract represents a viable way for an equilibrated release of carotenoids. Besides the excellent antioxidant properties (e.g. scavenging up to 98% of the free oxygen radicals), the results of cellular integrity (e.g. cell viability of 133%) recommend these nanocarriers based on dual carrot extract-bioactive oil as a promising trend for the treatment of certain disorders in which oxidative stress plays a prominent role. In addition, the lipid nanocarriers based on safflower oil and sea buckthorn oil demonstrated an anti-inflammatory effect on LPS induced THP-1 macrophages, by inhibiting the secretion of two pro inflammatory cytokines, IL-6 and TNF-alpha. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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In this work, a simple, reliable and fast capillary electrophoresis method was developed and partially validated for simultaneous detection of 20 polyphenolic compounds (presumed to be found in propolis and plant extracts) in less than 27 min. The best results were obtained using 45 mM tetraborate buffer with 0.9 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (pH = 9.35) as a background electrolyte. The polyphenolic compound order of elution was the following: resveratrol, pinostrobin, acacetin, chrysin, rutin, naringenin, isoquercitrin, umbelliferone, cinnamic acid, chlorogenic acid, galangin, sinapic acid, syringic acid, ferulic acid, kaempferol, luteolin, coumaric acid, quercetin, rosmarinic acid and caffeic acid. Linearity ranges used for compound quantification were satisfactory, presenting correlation coefficients between 0.997 and 0.999 for all 20 compounds. The method showed good performance characteristics: detection and quantification limits of 0.02 to 1.75 and 0.07 to 5.77 mu g mL(-1), respectively. The relative standard deviation values for repeatability did not exceed 4.86 % for intra-day assays and 5.07 % for inter-day assays. The recovery assays presented results between 87.4 and 114. 2 % for Origanum sample and between 85.0 and 111.0 % for propolis sample. The results obtained from the analysis of samples are in good correlation with literature data and bring new information about less studied samples such us aqueous Romanian propolis extracts and ethanolic Mentha aquatica extract.

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We report the experimental results that refer to a Fourier transform Raman (FT-Raman) survey of thermally altered Baltic and Romanian amber and the related statistical interpretation of data using principal component analysis (PCA). Although FT-Raman spectra show several small changes in the characteristic features of the investigated amber samples which may be used for discrimination, their visual recognition is relatively difficult, especially when interpreting data from archeological samples, and thus multivariate data analysis may be the solution to more accurately assign the geological origin based on overall characteristic spectral features. The two categories of amber have different behavior in terms of degradation during the experimental alteration, and Romanian amber is more susceptible to physico-chemical transformations by the aggressive environment when compared with Baltic amber. The obtained data were in accordance with the Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) remarks published previously in a dedicated journal. The Raman technique is an alternative method that requires little to no sample preparation, water does not cause interference, and the spectra can be collected from a small volume (1-50 mu m in diameter).

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capillary electrophoresis has proved to be a good alternative technique to high performance liquid chromatography for the investigation of various compounds due to its good resolution, versatility, simplicity, short analysis time and low consumption of chemicals and samples. This chapter presents a synthesis of our work regarding applications of capillary electrophoretic methods (capillary zone electrophoresis with diode array detection): the separation of small-chain organic acids from plants extracts, wines, lactic bacteria fermentation products, and the separation of polyphenolic compounds from propolis extracts, plant extracts and wines. Quantitative evaluation of organic acids in plants and foodstuff is important for flavour and nutritional studies, and also could be used as marker of bacterial activity. Organic acids occurring in foods are additives or end-products of carbohydrate metabolism of lactic acid bacteria. A good selection of lactic acid bacteria, in terms of content in organic acids, allows the control of mould growth and improves the shelf life of many fermented products and, therefore, reduces health risks due to exposure to mycotoxins. On the other side, the largely studied group of phytochemicals is polyphenols, an assembly of secondary metabolites with various chemical structures and functions and biological activities, which are produced during the physiological plant growth process as a response to different forms of environmental conditions. The methods for separation and quantification of organic acids and polyphenolic compounds were validated in terms of linearity of response, limit of detection, limit of quantification, precisions (i.e., intra-day, inter-day reproducibility) and recovery. The methods are simply, rapid, reliable and cost effective. © 2015 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Experimentally developed ceramic pots, with two different sizes of grain, were half-filled with wine and subjected to thermal alteration at constant elevated temperature ((60 +/- 2)A degrees C) in darkness for 12 weeks. This work sought to characterise the samples thereby obtained from chemical and mineralogical perspectives using scanning electron microscopy and an energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis system (SEM-EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection as an alternative to chromatographic methods, due to its good resolution, automation, simplicity, high speed, low consumption of chemicals and short time required for sample preparation. The capillary electrophoresis method was used for the detection of five wine biomarkers: succinic acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid and lactic acid. In general, it was noted that the fine-grained ceramic assortment retained the organic material better than the coarser-grained ceramics. An interesting observation derived from this study was that not only could tartaric acid be considered as a biomarker for wine residues in archaeological pottery, but malic acid could also act similarly for white wine and lactic acid for red wine.

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The content in short-chain organic acids of medicinal herbs is important for their taste, flavour and therapeutic effects. Short-chain organic acids from three types of medicinal plants were analyzed, chamomile (Matricaria recutita, Asteraceae), linden (lime, Tilia platyphyllos, Tiliaceae) and mint (menthe, Mentha piperita, Lamiaceae) as infusion and decoction. A diode array-capillary electrophoresis method has been partially validated that permits the direct measurement of 5 short-chain organic acids, respectively succinic, malic, citric, tartaric and lactic acid, in medicinal plants extracts (teas). The method is simple, rapid, reliable and low consumption of resources in comparison with chromatographic methods; it could be applied on other natural products and extracts (coffee, honey, fruits, juices and wines) and could be developed on a, wide series of short-chain organic acids.