Metabolite characterization of fifteen by-products of the coffee production chain: From farm to factory.

Approximately 11.4 million tonnes of solid by-products and an increased amount of waste water will be generated during the 2020/21 coffee harvest. There are currently no truly value-adding uses for these potentially environmentally threatening species. This work presents the most wide-ranging chemical investigation of coffee by-products collected from farms to factories, including eight never previously investigated. Twenty compounds were found for the first time in coffee by-products including the bioactive neomangiferin, kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside, lup-20(29)-en-3-one and 3,4-dimethoxy cinnamic acid. Five by-products generated inside a factory showed caffeine (53.0-17.0 mg.g-1) and/or chlorogenic acid (72.9-10.1 mg.g-1) content comparable to coffee beans, while mature leaf from plant pruning presented not only high contents of both compounds (16.4 and 38.9 mg.g-1, respectively), but also of mangiferin (19.4 mg.g-1) besides a variety of flavonoids. Such by-products are a source of a range of bioactive compounds and could be explored with potential economic and certainly environmental benefits.

Chemometrics Approaches in Forced Degradation Studies of Pharmaceutical Drugs.

Chemometrics is the chemistry field responsible for planning and extracting the maximum of information of experiments from chemical data using mathematical tools (linear algebra, statistics, and so on). Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can form impurities when exposed to excipients or environmental variables such as light, high temperatures, acidic or basic conditions, humidity, and oxidative environment. By considering that these impurities can affect the safety and efficacy of the drug product, it is necessary to know how these impurities are yielded and to establish the pathway of their formation. In this context, forced degradation studies of pharmaceutical drugs have been used for the characterization of physicochemical stability of APIs. These studies are also essential in the validation of analytical methodologies, in order to prove the selectivity of methods for the API and its impurities and to create strategies to avoid the formation of degradation products. This review aims to demonstrate how forced degradation studies have been actually performed and the applications of chemometric tools in related studies. Some papers are going to be discussed to exemplify the chemometric applications in forced degradation studies.

Gradients methods for simultaneous optimizations: case studies for food systems / Métodos de gradiente para otimização simultânea: estudo de casos de sistemas alimentares

The objective of this work was to develop a software with efficient gradient methods for foods systems multiresponse optimization using the Derringer & Suich function, including a 4th order polynomial equation to remove non-differentiable points in that function. The software was tested in three food systems selected in specialized literature: 1) inactivated lipoxygenase and lipase and preserve phytase activity in barley during soaking; 2) simultaneous optimization of response in protein mixture formulation; 3) simultaneous optimization of parameters used in roasting process of corn germ to be used as an ingredient in foods. The program that was developed has show itself to be efficient and trustworthy for the optimization of multiresponse.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo desenvolver um aplicativo com métodos de gradiente eficazes na otimização de sistemas alimentares com respostas múltiplas utilizando as funções de Derringer & Suich, incluindo um polinômio de 4º grau para a remoção das descontinuidades dessas funções. O aplicativo foi testado em três sistemas alimentares selecionados na literatura especializada: 1) inativação da lipoxigenase e lípase preservando-se a atividade da fitase durante o processamento hidrotérmico da cevada; 2) otimização simultânea das respostas na formulação de misturas de proteínas; 3) otimização simultânea dos parâmetros de torração de gérmen de milho visando aplicação como ingrediente em alimentos. O programa desenvolvido mostrou ser eficiente e confiável para a otimização em sistemas alimentares multirresposta.