Increasing production of cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) leads to a higher environmental burden due to its solid waste generation. Cocoa pod husk, one of the major solid wastes of cocoa production, contains rich bioactive compounds unveiling its valorization potential. With that in mind, our research aimed to explore the biological and antioxidant activities of aqueous extracts from cocoa pod husks. In this present work, cocoa pod husk was extracted using water and subsequentially partitioned using n-hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol. The antimicrobial investigation revealed that the ethyl acetate solubles were active against the Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Candida albicans, where at a 20% w/v concentration, the inhibition diameters were 6.62 ± 0.10, 6.52 ± 0.02, and 11.72 ± 0.36 mm, respectively. The extracts were found non-toxic proven by brine shrimp lethality tests against Artemia salina with LC₅₀ scores ranging from 74.1 to 19,054.6 μg/mL. The total phenolic content and total flavonoid content were obtained in the range of 47.44 to 570.44 mg/g GAE and 1.96 to 4.34 mg/g QE, respectively. Antioxidant activities of the obtained extracts were revealed by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) assay with EC₅₀ reached as low as 9.61 μg/mL by the ethyl acetate soluble. Phytochemical screening based on gas chromatography—mass spectroscopy analysis on the sample with the highest antioxidant activities revealed the dominant presence of three phytosterols, namely gamma-sitosterol, stigmasterol, and campesterol.

This study aimed to evaluate the herbicidal activity of ethyl acetate leaf extract of Ageratum conyzoides L. at different subfractions on Amaranthus spinosus L. The leaves of A. conyzoides were sequentially extracted with n-hexane and ethyl acetate respectively and fractionated by chromatography column. The extracts were applied to A. spinosus in pot assays at a concentration of 5%, 10% and 15%. We applied A synthetic herbicide (2,4-D at 0.686 kg a.i. ha⁻¹) for positive control and distilled water for negative control. The A. conyzoides extracts strongly differed in their effect on weed control, shoot and root dry weight and root length of A. spinosus. The most inhibition on A. spinosus growth caused by application of ethyl acetate of A. conyzoides extracts subfraction A by 10% concentration can cause 100% destruction and subfraction B were 95% which both of them cause strongest death on A. spinosus compared with synthetic herbicide (2, 4-D) (23.33%) at 1 Day After Application, while subfraction C and D were not effective. Main constituents identified by GC-MS in subfraction A extract were tetradecanoic acid, ethyl ester (10.26%), precocene II (9.39%), octadecanal (8.23%), 9,12,15-octatadecatrienoic, methyl ester (7.32%), 10-heneicosene (c,t) (5.19%) and neophytadiene (5.09%); in subfraction B were 1-octadecyne (38.57%), phytol (11.24%), di-tert-utylphosphine-d (5.17%) and 1-hexadecine (4.08%); in subfraction C were allobarbital (8.53%), octadecanal (12.69%), and bannamurpanin (26.01%) and octadecanal (30.52%), bannamurpanin (24.06%), 1,8-cineole (15.75%), trans-dodec-5enal (12.28%) and phytol (8.26%) in subfraction D. The ethyl acetate extract subfraction A and B concentration 10% proved the promising control agent against A. spinosus.