This manuscript describes the preparation of green nanovesicles by using cardanol as renewable starting material with embedded minor amounts of phthalazines, a class of heterocyclic bioactive compounds. The nanovesicles were prepared by stirring induced self-assembly in aqueous medium without involvement of any organic solvent. Dynamic light scattering studies and transmission electron microscopy revealed the formation of nanostructure with an average diameter in the range of 227375 nm and a well defined spherical morphology. Potential antioxidant activity of nanovesicles were evaluated for the first time by 2,20-azino-bis-(3ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) scavenging assay and bleomycin-dependent DNA damage. Moreover, their cytotoxic effects were also investigated by 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl]-2,5diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay on different tumour cell lines. Unloaded nanovesicles showed moderate antioxidant and antitumoural activity that was further enhanced particularly by embedding the 2-[4-(4-Hydrazinophthalazin-1-yl)-phenyl]-isoindole1,3-dione compound.

Combined separation and purification processes are gaining considerable attention in the water engineering community as they have the potential to integrate several treatment stages in a single, space-efficient and multifunctional process able to act as a multi-barrier against a wide spectrum of recalcitrant pollutants. In this paper, the efficiency of a combined physico-chemical process, previously validated as a tertiary treatment for municipal wastewater reclamation and successfully tested at pilot scale for the removal of total phenols, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and Escherichia coli, was tested for the precipitation of low-arsenic (V) concentration (<100 μg/L) from drinking water. The combined process, consisting of simultaneously dosing, in various proportions and according to a Latin square design-of-experiment scheme, aluminum polychloride (AP), zeolite (Z), powder activated carbon (PAC) and sodium hypochlorite (SH) into dechlorinated tap water spiked with arsenic (V), was assessed at laboratory scale in order to elucidate the mechanism of arsenic (V) removal as well as to identify the optimal mixing conditions using variable-speed jar-test experiments. Results indicated that the combined process was very effective in removing low arsenic (V) concentration from drinking water in the range of 25–100 μg/L. Moreover, it was found that, among the tested variables, high-velocity gradient conditions led to an improved removal efficiency which reached 89% under optimized process conditions. Although all treating agents played a statistically significant role in terms of process performance, arsenic (V) co-precipitation by AP was found to be the dominating removal mechanism contributing up to an 85% at 1400 rpm, with Z and PAC co-operating for the remaining 5% and mostly functioning as enhancing agents for ballasted settling. Notably, the process investigated in this study was also found to be robust against variation in initial arsenic concentration, showing similar arsenic (V) removal efficiency (85.9%) when the initial arsenic (V) concentration was further reduced from 100 to 25 μg/L. In conclusion, it was demonstrated that the combined treatment process was able to efficiently and simultaneously remove not only organic micropollutants such as phenols, COD and E. coli (as demonstrated in previous studies) but also inorganic contamination by arsenic (V) from a typical drinking water matrix via co-precipitation on aluminum polychloride, a treating agent that is worldwide accessible and typically used in water treatment applications.

Organic coatings have been widely used to protect carbon steel pipelines from external corrosion; however, they often suffer from permeability and weak adhesion. Here we show that synthetic lanthanide bis-phthalocyanine complexes, LnPc2 (Ln ¼ lanthanide metal, Pc ¼ C32H16N8 denotes the phthalocyanine ligand) can be used to form new nanocomposite coatings to provide corrosion protection to the underlying carbon steel pipelines. Electrochemical studies (EIS and potentiodynamic polarization) showed that the incorporation of LnPc2 compound (PrPc2, SmPc2 and HoPc2) additives with alkyd coating, leads to a significant increase in the corrosion resistance of carbon steel in 0.5 M HCl solution. The alkyd@LnPc2 nanocomposite coatings absorb very low water volumes, when compared to the neat alkyd coating. LnPc2 compounds allowed enhancing the pull-off adhesion of coatings performance from 3.34 MPa to 19.94 MPa. The efficiency of alkyd@HoPc2 coating appears higher than that of alkyd@PrPc2 and alkyd@SmPc2 coatings. The protective properties of alkyd@LnPc2 coatings were confirmed by SEM, TGA, scratch hardness, impact resistance, bend test and contact angle analysis.

Cardanol is a natural and renewable organic raw material obtained as the major chemical component by vacuum distillation of cashew nut shell liquid. In this work a new sustainable procedure for producing cardanol-based micellar nanodispersions having an embedded lipophilic porphyrin itself peripherally functionalized with cardanol substituents (porphyrin-cardanol hybrid) has been described for the first time. In particular, cardanol acts as the solvent of the cardanol hybrid porphyrin and cholesterol as well as being the main component of the nanodispersions. In this way a “green” micellar nanodispersion, in which a high percentage of the micellar system is derived from renewable “functional” molecules, has been produced.

With relevance to an increasingly large set of environmentally friendly products and processes, a green nanoformulation based on renewables was proposed. Our attention was devoted to cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis extract compound known for its intrinsically low chemical stability that limits its therapeutic potential. In this work, the environmental stability of CBD was improved, adopting a new sustainable formulation. In particular, for the first time, CBD was embedded into a vesicular nanosystem based on cardanol (CA) known for its antioxidant properties which stabilize and avoid its degradation in an aqueous environment. Chemical and physical characterization of nanovesicles was carried out by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Exhaustive dialysis was used to purify samples, and the presence of CBD not embedded into nanodispersions was monitored by UV-vis spectrometry measurements until its disappearance. Identification and quantification of CA and CBD were performed after lysis of nanovesicles through a high-performance liquid chromatograph coupled to diode a array and mass spectrometer detectors (HPLC-DAD-MS). Furthermore, stability studies of green nanoformulations were performed at two different temperatures (20 and 4 °C) to ascertain their better preservation.

A new class of porphyrin(Pp)/Fe co-loaded TiO2 composites opportunely prepared by impregnation of [5,10,15,20-tetra(4-tertbutylphenyl)] porphyrin (H2Pp) or Cu(II)[5,10,15,20-tetra(4-tert-butylphenyl)] porphyrin (CuPp) onto Fe-loaded TiO2 particles showed high activities by carrying out the degradation of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) as probe reaction in aqueous suspension under heterogeneous photo-Fenton-like reactions by using UV-visible light. e combination of porphyrin-Fe-TiO2 in the presence of H2O2 showed to be more efficient than the simple bare TiO2 or Fe-TiO2.

In this study, H2Pc/Epoxy nanocomposite coating was fabricated for anti-corrosion applications. The electrochemical, cross-cut adhesion, impact resistance, bend test, contact angle, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) analysis were employed to evaluate the performance of new nanocomposites. Corrosion monitoring was achieved in saline solution (3.0 wt.% NaCl). The improvement of the corrosion performance of the epoxy coating containing H2Pc particles by comparison with neat epoxy resin was confirmed by the high coating resistance. Degradation of H2Pc/Epoxy nanocomposite coating was observed after 14 days. It was found that H2Pc particles improved the cross-cut adhesion, impact resistance and thermal stability of epoxy resin.

Novel sandwich-type phthalocyanines containing a rare earth metal core (Pr, Nd, Eu–Lu) and macrocycles peripherally substituted by pentadecylphenoxy groups were synthesized using a cardanol-based phthalonitrile precursor and the respective lanthanide acetate. Additionally, the metal free-base analog compound was studied for comparison. The purified reaction products were all found to be thick and viscous substances at room temperature, showing liquid crystalline behavior with a distinct increase in fluidity at ca. 40 °C. The complexes are readily soluble in chloroalkyl solvents and dissolve fairly well in DMF with some tendency to form aggregates. Besides they are strongly hydrophobic and reveal a peculiar affinity for lipophilic media. The compounds have been characterized by UV-Vis (absorption and emission), FTIR, MS and DSC methods. Photochemical activity in the liquid phase (dimethylformamide, dichloromethane, mineral oil) and the degree of photodegradation demonstrated under constant UV-irradiation (λ = 352 nm) have been analyzed and discussed in terms of photostability.

This study describes the preparation of ion-imprinted polymers (IIPs) for the selective removal of Hg(II) ions from aqueous media. Polymeric sorbents were prepared using different synthesis approaches to understand the influence of diphenylcarbazone (DPC), used as non-polymerizable ligand, on absorption performance. In particular, bulk polymerization was first used to prepare two polymers, IIP1 and IIP2, in the absence and presence of DPC. The trapping of the ligand in IIP2, demonstrated by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, promotes the formation of ternary complexes with mercury ions, and 4-vinylpyridine induces an increase in binding performance, as indicated by the Kavalues (1.7 × 103±0.4 M−1 and 12.1 × 103±0.5 M−1, respectively) of IIP1 and IIP2 high affinity binding sites. A third polymer (IIP3) was also synthesized using precipitation polymerization to evaluate the contribution of morphological characteristics on absorption performance compared with the addition of DPC. Competitive studies revealed a stronger influence of IIP3 morphology on selectivity performance. Indeed, monodisperse microbeads were obtained only in this case. Finally, the applicability of the polymers to real-world samples was demonstrated through batch experiments using drinking water spiked with 1μgml−1 of Hg(II) ions, and the best removal efficiency of nearly 80% was obtained for IIP2.

A new class of porphyrin(Pp)/Fe co-loaded TiO2 composites opportunely prepared by impregnation of [5,10,15,20-tetra(4-tert-butylphenyl)] porphyrin (H2Pp) or Cu(II)[5,10,15,20-tetra(4-tert-butylphenyl)] porphyrin (CuPp) onto Fe-loaded TiO2 particles showed high activities toward the degradation of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) by heterogeneous photo Fenton-like processes.

Cardanol (CA) is a natural and renewable organic raw material obtained as the major by-product from the distillation of cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL). Thanks to its amphiphilic properties under alkaline conditions, was developed an environmental-friendly technology to produce engineered “green nanocarriers”, without use of any organic solvents, in which CA acts as the solvent as well as being the main component of the nanodispersions.

In this article, the environmentally friendly preparation of “green nanocarriers” based on the combination of natural renewable materials is described. Cardanol (CA), obtained as the major byproduct of the cashew industry, and cholesterol (CH) have been used to encapsulate chlorogenic acids (CQAs), a class of natural phenolic compounds extracted from two different rowanberries (Sorbus Americana and Vaccinium sp.). The chlorogenic acid extracts and cardanol-based vesicular nanodispersions have been characterized, respectively, by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS).

In the present work, blends of M-Porphyrins (Zn-Pp, Cu-Pp, and Co-Pp) with alkyd resin have been used for development of novel nanocomposite anticorrosive coatings. The nanocomposite coatings containing the synthesized M-Porphyrins were applied on carbon steel specimens, and the coated specimens were evaluated for their corrosion and mechanical properties in 0.5 M HCl solution. The performance of nanocomposite coatings was detected using potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), water permeability and pull-off adhesion measurements. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed the surface characterizations of nanocomposite coatings. The coating film capacitances were monitored with the immersion time to establish water uptake of these coating films. The results showed that the incorporation of M-Porphyrins significantly improved anticorrosive performance and mechanical properties of the alkyd resin. Lower water uptake was observed for alkyd resin containing M-Porphyrins particles. The central metal atoms that were bonded to Porphyrins structure are the main reason for the difference in the protection efficiency. Best corrosion protection of the carbon steel was found for the alkyd resin with Co-Pp (98.47%).