Currently, there is increasing interest on low cost and commercially available materials for the adsorption of heavy metals. The vital benefits of adsorption technologies are its potential in reducing the concentration of heavy metal ions using low-cost adsorbent materials. Fruit peel wastes (FPW) are readily available in abundance. Furthermore, it has a high potential as a sustainable adsorbent due to its large quantity of lignocellulosic materials. Realizing this potential, there are many studies on various fruit peels waste adsorbents used in the removal of Pb (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) ions from wastewater. However, there is no comprehensive review of these adsorbents, especially on the factors that influenced the adsorption capacity. Hence, this review aims to study on the various fruit peels waste adsorbents and the factors by comparing the metal binding capacities, metal removal performances, sorbent dosage, optimum pH, temperature, initial concentration and contact time. Finally, the adsorption mechanisms were also discussed.

Reverse micelles extraction of erythromycin and amoxicillin were carried out using the novel Sophorolipids biosurfactant. By replacing commonly used chemical surfactants with biosurfactant, reverse micelle extraction can be further improved in terms of environmental friendliness and sustainability. A central composite experimental design was used to investigate the effects of solution pH, KCl concentration, and sophorolipids concentration on the reverse micelle extraction of antibiotics. The most significant factor identified during the reverse micelle extraction of both antibiotics is the pH of aqueous solutions. Best forward extraction performance for erythromycin was found at feed phase pH of approximately 8.0 with low KCl and sophorolipids concentrations. Optimum recovery of erythromycin was obtained at stripping phase pH around 10.0 and with low KCl concentration. On the other hand, best forward extraction performance for amoxicillin was found at feed phase pH around 3.5 with low KCl concentration and high sophorolipids concentration. Optimum recovery of erythromycin was obtained at stripping phase pH around 6.0 with low KCl concentration. Both erythromycin and amoxicillin were found to be very sensitive toaqueous phase pH and can be easily degraded outside of their stable pH ranges.

The contamination of food and feed by Aspergillus has become a global issue with a significant worldwide economic impact. The growth of Aspergillus is unfavourable to the development of food and feed industries, where the problems happen mostly due to the presence of mycotoxins, which is a toxic metabolite secreted by most Aspergillus groups. Moreover, fungi can produce spores that cause diseases, such as allergies and asthma, especially to human beings. High temperature, high moisture, retarded crops, and poor food storage conditions encourage the growth of mold, as well as the development of mycotoxins. A variety of chemical, biological, and physical strategies have been developed to control the production of mycotoxins. A biological approach, using a mixed culture comprised of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus rhamnosus resulted in the inhibition of the growth of fungi when inoculated into fermented food. The results reveal that the mixed culture has a higher potential (37.08%) to inhibit the growth of Aspergillus flavus (producer of Aflatoxin) compared to either single culture, L. rhamnosus NRRL B-442 and S. cerevisiae, which inhibit the growth by 63.07% and 64.24%, respectively.

Over recent years, there has been an explosive growth of sample preparation techniques. Sample preparation is in most cases meant to be the isolation online or offline concentration of some components of interest or target analytes. Solid phase extraction (SPE) is a very popular technique nowadays in sample preparation. The principal is quite similar with liquid- liquid extraction (LLE) which involves partition of solutes between two phases. But, there are some differences between them and some benefits and limitations of difference types of SPE technique like presented in this paper.

The main focus of this study was to produce the angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides from collagen type I using new combination of Thermoase PC10F and tilapia skin as a protein collagen source. In silico evaluation of amino acids profile of collagen type I, ACE-inhibitory peptides and sensory profile of the hydrolyzate were performed using Protparam and BIOPEP, respectively, to initially predict the potential peptide produced. Hydrolysis conditions were studied based on the best preliminary design of degree hydrolysis (DH) using o-phthalaldehyde (OPA) method. The temperature of 60°C, pH of 5 and an enzyme to substrate ratio of 1:100 were observed as the best conditions to obtain the highest DH using Thermoase PC10F. Peptide chain length (PCL) showed a proportional decrease as DH increased. In silico study of alpha 1 and alpha 2 collagen type I indicated a significant amount of glycine and proline, which are known to stabilize the collagen structure. The profile of potential biological activity suggested that 247 ACE-inhibitory peptides could be obtained from the parent protein sequence of collagen type I alpha 1 and alpha 2. In silico hydrolysis by thermolysin is believed to release potent theoretical peptides with IC₅₀ less than 5 μM for both collagen type I subunits with a high number of occurrences. Further analysis on its potential sensory peptides had shown that both alpha 1 and alpha 2 contained mainly sweet amino acid, bitter peptides, and bitter amino acids.