Apigenin (Apig) is used as a model drug due to its many beneficial bio-activities and therapeutic potentials. Nevertheless, its poor water solubility and low storage stability have limited its application feasibility on the pharmaceutical field. To address this issue, this study developed nanoemulsions (NEs) using an anti-oxidative polymeric amphiphile, d-α-tocopheryl polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS), hydrogenated soy lecithin (HL), black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) oil, and avocado (AV) oil through pre-homogenization and ultrasonication method. Addition of TPGS (weight ratios 100 and 50% as compared to HL) into NEs effectively reduced particle size and phase transition region area of NEs with pure HL. Incorporation of Apig into NEs made particle size increase and provided a disorder effect on intraparticle molecular packing. Nevertheless, the encapsulation efficiency of NEs for Apig approached to about 99%. The chemical stability of Apig was significantly improved and its antioxidant ability was elevated by incorporation with BSFL oil and AV oil NEs, especially for NEs with single TPGS. NEs with single TPGS also exhibited the best Apig skin deposition. For future application of topical Apig delivery, NEs-gel was formed by the addition of hyaluronic acid (HA) into NEs. Their rheological characteristics were dominated by the surfactant ratios of HL to TPGS.
Advancing the value of products derived from insect biomass is a potential way to increase the demand of processing insect as renewable and sustainable resources. Among several species of insect, black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) is promising biomass source because of its favorable characteristics such as easy cultivation, fast-growing, and worldwide distribution. One problem that could limit the development of insect-based bioproduct is the low market price and displeasing uses for edible food. To overcome this problem, value-added product development is necessary to carried out. Thus, establish an antifungal lotion using extracted materials from BSFL biomass was discussed in this report followed by the economic evaluation and sensitivity analysis. The result reveal that equipment availability in market and raw material readiness espouse the production expediency. From the economic aspect, the direct fixed capital cost (DFC) for a plant of this capacity is around US$3.6 million, or approximately 6 times the total equipment cost. Thus, the net profitability will remain stable even the market price of BSFL might fluctuate in the range of 20%. In contrary, the change in main product price was impactful to the rate of return (ROI), internal rate of return (IRR) and, payback time (PBT) value. The overall result suggests that this project is worthy to being built.
Reactive distillation (RD) holds promise for process intensification in biodiesel production since it integrates reaction and separation. It simplifies the process and enhances the conversion of the equilibrium limited reactions. To ensure the stability in RD operation, sensitivity study and process control simulation are necessary. In this work, RD was employed for free fatty acid (FFA) esterification of mixed non edible oils in biodiesel synthesis. Non edible oils used were waste cooking oil, crude jatropha oil, and crude nyamplung oil (Calophyllum inophyllum L). Simulation was conducted using ASPEN Plus V8.8. Sensitivity study was carried out to determine the effects of the operating condition alteration. A dynamic simulation was performed as a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller tuning. It was revealed that the highest FFA conversion was 85%, achieved at the feed stage of 7, distillate rate of 0.22 kmol/hr, and oil to methanol molar ratio of 1:5. Level, pressure and temperature controls were installed in RD. Then, a dynamic simulation was applied as a PID controller tuning. Three different controller tuning methods, viz. Ziegler-Nichols, Cohen-Coon, and Internal Model Control, were studied. The best PID parameter was obtained by using Cohen-Coon method which provided fastest rise time, lowest settling time and lowest overshoot.
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