Natural products: an extraordinary source of value-added compounds from diverse biomasses in Brazil

Abstract

The biodiversity of Brazil contains an extraordinary number of compounds from natural products with a wide and complex variety of molecular structures, therefore representing an economic potential in biomasses to be explored. Plant systems are the principal source of medicine and directly contribute to the development of new drugs in addition to agrochemicals, cosmetics, fine chemicals and nutraceuticals. Besides plants, other biomasses can be used as raw material, including marine organisms and microorganisms such as extremophilic and endophytic microbes. Interest in natural products for diverse uses is attributed to their different bioactivities, low toxicity and environmental sustainability. Based on these attributes, other non-biological applications of natural products from biomasses have been reported for use in textiles, antifouling coating in marine transportation, wood adhesives, industrial polymers and biofuel. After extractions of natural products of pharmaceutical interest or industrial application, such as polymers, or even of metabolites for biofuels, the residues (e.g., fibers) or other compounds (e.g., nutrients) are discarded generating unnecessary environmental pollution, but they could be used for the production of different value-added products. Some examples of residues that are being explored for added value by extracting other natural metabolites are olive and apple pomace, macauba and carnauba cakes, and cashew nut shell liquid. Residues and by-products derived from different biomasses in Brazil are a potential source of compounds of biological and industrial interest and therefore must be investigated in order to add value to the entire supply chain of natural product.

Distilled pyroligneous liquor obtained from Eucalyptus grandis and chitosan: physicochemical properties of the solution and films

“…Due to its antimicrobial activity, PL also has been used for veterinary and agricultural purposes. It has a fertilizing effect on some plants and presents nematocidal, fungicidal, and insecticidal action in the control of pests and plant diseases, and the remediation of soils (Silva and Rodrigues 2014;Silva et al 2017;Theapparat et al 2015;Togoro et al 2014). Melo et al (2017) found promising results in using pyroligneous liquor for the integrated management of plant diseases.…”

Free Marine Natural Products Databases for Biotechnology and Bioengineering

“…The immense diversity of life forms in the ocean correlates with the vast variability of biomaterials present in marine organisms. Thus, there is interest to retain compounds of interest from fishery side products as an ecological approach to acquire high‐value compounds . Marine‐based compounds for materials science are very diverse and have various applications in ceramics, gels, and other biopolymers .…”

“…Thus, there is interest to retain compounds of interest from fishery side products as an ecological approach to acquire high‐value compounds . Marine‐based compounds for materials science are very diverse and have various applications in ceramics, gels, and other biopolymers . MNPs have also been important in creating biofuels a new way, namely biodiesel and bioethanol .…”

Medicinal Plants from Brazilian Cerrado: Antioxidant and Anticancer Potential and Protection against Chemotherapy Toxicity

“…Brazil is considered to be the territory with the richest biodiversity in the world [8–11]; the Cerrado is the second main biome, exhibiting a great diversity of natural plants [9, 12, 13]. The Cerrado is located in the middle west of Brazil, encompassing almost 2 million km 2 that covers 21% of the Brazilian territory [14, 15].…”