Bacaba is widely consumed by the Amazonian population, and is promising for the production of cooking oil. The objective of this research was to determine the parameters of bacaba oil extraction with supercritical CO₂: the fatty acid composition, functional quality, oxidative stability, spectroscopic profile and antioxidant activity of the extracted oil. Extractions of bacaba (Oenocarpus bacaba) oil were performed with supercritical CO₂ at temperatures of 40 and 60 ºC, with pressures varying from 120 to 420 bar. The highest mass yield was 60.39 ± 0.72% on a dry basis, obtained in the isotherm of 60 °C and 420 bar. Oleic acid was the major compound. The Infrared spectroscopic profile showed the predominance of unsaturated fatty acids. The results indicate that bacaba oil presents good functional quality.

In this paper, we investigate the solubility effects of Co in ZnO (Zn_1−xCo_xO, where x = 0, 0.03, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.25, 0.4, 0.8, and 1) by combining the results of perturbed angular correlation (PAC) spectroscopy using highly diluted ¹¹¹Cd as probe nuclei and ab initio calculations based on spin-density functional theory (SDFT). This combined approach enables us to characterize the local structure around Cd ions, where, through PAC technique, it was possible to measure the EFG as a function of temperature and Co concentration and thereby monitor the changes in the structure and the Co solubility threshold in ZnO and the ZnO/CoO/Co₃O₄ mixed phase. The full-potential linear augmented plane wave plus local orbital (APW+lo) formalism were used here to describe the electronic structure of the supercells, including the atomic relaxations. These Ab initio calculations show an interesting behavior of the Cd and Co impurity levels in the band structure of ZnO, which explains the experimental results in terms of the origin of EFG and the evidence of ferromagnetic response.

This work investigates the incorporation of Vismia guianensis alcoholic extract (EAVG) into cassava starch, with the aim of improving its bioplastic properties. Cassava starch was dissolved into distilled water and doped with 0.2%, 0.5%, and 1.0% EAVG under a temperature controlled at the gelatinization point (∼70 °C) and then cast to form bioplastics. The resulting samples were characterized via attenuated total reflectance/Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR/FTIR), thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TGA-DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and mechanical essays, providing insights into chemical composition, thermal stability, crystallinity, surface morphology, and mechanical properties. The results demonstrated that EAVG played an effective role, enhancing the flexibility and stability of the bioplastic with potential use in biomedical applications. Moreover, the results also showed significant improvements in mechanical and thermal properties, suggesting that EAVG is a valuable addition to bioplastics. Therefore, EAVG presents a pathway for advancing bioplastics with enhanced mechanical, thermal, and functional characteristics, with the potential for further advancements in these fields.