Water purification is considered one of the most essential issues in our lives. Therefore, the contamination of water surfaces owing to the hasty upsurge in industrialization has received great global attention because of its potential danger to human health and the eco-system. Particularly, the discharge of various non-biodegradable contaminants into the water body—heavy metal ions, organic dyes, pharmaceutical antibiotics, pesticides, and oils—causes these contaminants to accumulate on the water's surface and have harmful impacts on humans and the environment. Several conventional methods can be applied to solve this problem, including chemical oxidation, precipitation, coagulation, and so on. However, they suffer from serious limitations: high cost, limited functionality, prolonged and heavy energy use, and poor separation efficiency. Conversely, the adsorption technique has recently attracted a lot of attention for wastewater treatment thanks to its remarkable benefits of being a simple, highly selective, and low-cost technique. Recently, natural polysaccharides (especially starch)-based adsorbents have received great interest in water purification owing to their outstanding properties, including being easily available, non-toxic, low-cost, biodegradable, and biocompatible. However, it possesses notable drawbacks that prevent it from being used alone as an adsorbent for wastewater treatment, including low thermal stability, slight water solubility, and rapid degradability in water. Therefore, this review highlights a comprehensive presentation about various starch modifications: starch-based grafts, hydrogels, aerogels, beads, nanofibers, and nanocomposite formulations to remove several toxic contaminants, including toxic heavy metal ions, organic dyes, pharmaceutical antibiotics, pesticides, and oils.

The electrospinning process was used to successfully encapsulate an anticancer drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), into poly(ε-caprolactone)/gelatin (Gel) nanofiber mats (5-FU-PCL/Gel NFs). Nanofibers are recognized to be potential carriers for the delivery of anticancer drugs. One of the safest solvent systems for making PCL/Gel NF mats is the formic acid/acetic acid (FA/AA) solvent system. A compound solution jet was drawn from a customized coaxial spinneret using a high potential electric field of 20 kV. The loading of 5-FU with three different concentrations (5, 10, and 15 wt.%) improved PCL stabilization in the FA/AA system. The miscibility of the blended polymers in the electrospun nanofibers mats and 5-FU being well distributed in the nanofiber matrix was investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD). In vitro 5-FU release from electrospun PCL/Gel NF mats revealed sustained release from the nanofiber mats, whereas slower release was found when higher concentrations of 5-FU were used. The produced electrospun PCL/Gel NF mats were studied by SEM, FTIR, TGA, and DSC. According to a study on drug release kinetics, 5-FU was released from PCl/Gel NFs in a diffusion-controlled pattern.

Nanoscale devices offer a lot of potential in drug delivery because of their small size. The goal of this work was to increase the oral bioavailability of the anti-cancer hydrophilic drug as 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) by incorporating it into poly (D, L-lactide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles (PLGNPs) using the double emulsion process, 5-FU- PLGNPs nanoparticles were created. Various factors, such as drug, polymer, and stabilizer concentrations, were investigated for assembly in order to arrive at the most effective formulation of 5-FU-PLGNPs. PLGNPs had a drug encapsulation efficiency of 9.75 to 24.8%. The prepared nanoparticles had a spherical shape and an average size of 212.3–285 nm, as shown by TEM. The dispersion of the drug into the prepared PLGNPs was confirmed by XRPD and FTIR. The optimized nanoparticles (F225) had high encapsulation efficiency 24.8 ± 0.21%, low particles size 212.3 ± 48.2 nm with an appropriate PDI value of 0.448, and ZP of − 48.3 ± 2.7 mV. The molecular dispersion of the medication within the system was validated by thermal behavior studies (DSC). In vitro drug release from the best-selected formulations revealed a sustained release of nanoparticles, with slower release reported when lower PVA concentrations were utilized. Three 5-FU-PLGNPs formulations were tested for anticancer efficacy against cell cultures of HCT-116 (human colorectal carcinoma), MCF-7 (human breast carcinoma), and HepG2 (human hepatocellular carcinoma). The created formulations were examined for in vitro cytotoxic activity, revealing that they appeared to be promising effective anticancer formulations when compared to the positive controlled (doxorubicin).