Nucleic acids from agro-industrial wastes: A green recovery method for fire retardant applications

Abstract

Two different agro-industrial biological wastes, namely spent brewer's yeast and vegetable scraps have been considered as inexpensive sources of nucleic acids (NAs) to be employed for conferring flame retardant features to cotton fabrics. A simple, cheap and green extraction method has been setup for each matrix. The yields, purity grades and molecular sizes have been assessed and compared with two different commercially available purified DNA. The developed extraction procedures have shown a high level of reliability for the recovery of nucleic acids *Manuscript Click here to view linked References from both agro-industrial wastes. The results of the flammability tests with the extracted NAs clearly indicated that, the add-on value on the fabrics being equal, the NAs extracted from spent brewer's yeast cells are able to provide self-extinction to cotton and reproduce the fire behaviour obtained with highly expensive commercially purified DNAs. Thus, the proposed procedures may be applied for large-scale NA recovery from inexpensive agro-food wastes to obtain partially purified NA suitable for fire retardant applications. Moreover, the developed extraction procedures can be considered an addition to the growing body of more rational waste valorisation techniques within the bio-refinery approach and circular economy concept.

Biomacromolecules and Bio-Sourced Products for the Design of Flame Retarded Fabrics: Current State of the Art and Future Perspectives

“…Moreover, the possibility of scaling-up this green know-how is still being evaluated: apart from the flame retardant performances, the cost-effectiveness of the biomacromolecules/bio-sourced extracts represents the key point that will help when taking the final decision. Actually, DNA/nucleic acids, which, among the reviewed systems, seem to show the highest potential for flame retarded textiles, are very expensive, notwithstanding that high purity in not necessary at all [77]. Therefore, the industrial exploitation requires an acceptable reduction of the related supply costs.…”

Plant Secondary Metabolites: An Opportunity for Circular Economy

“…Actually, the high added-value molecules still contained in plant wastes and by-products offer a wide spectrum of possibilities for their valorization and reuse, as foreseen by circular economy [ 15 , 16 ]. For example, from agri-food wastes it is still possible to extract macromolecules such as nucleic acids [ 17 ], pectins [ 18 ], cellulose material [ 19 ], and enzymes such as bromelain, which is derived from pineapple residues and extensively used as a pharmaceutical and meat tenderizer [ 20 ]. Primary metabolites (i.e., organic acids, amino acids, carbohydrates) can also be obtained from plant waste material and used for different purposes [ 21 ].…”

A systematic review of research on food loss and waste prevention and management for the circular economy

“…The highest number of papers (99) used lab-scale or pilot studies to demonstrate the feasibility of technological innovations to valorise FLWs or enhance the efficiency of current processes (Bosco et al, 2017;Esteban-Gutiérrez et al, 2018;Grillo et al, 2019;Atasoy et al, 2020;Weber et al, 2020), or demonstrate the feasibility of self-sustaining FSC model (Stoknes et al, 2016). Positive results from experiments pave the way for the upscaling potentials, driving the transition towards the CE.…”