A Comprehensive Study for Determination of Free Fatty Acids in Selected Biological Materials: A Review

The quality of oil is highly dependent on its free fatty acid (FFA) content, especially due to increased restrictions on renewable fuels. As a result, there has been a growing interest in free fatty acid determination methods over the last few decades. While various standard methods are currently available, such as the American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS), International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), and Japan Oil Chemists' Society (JOCS), to obtain accurate results, there is a pressing need to investigate a fast, accurate, feasible, and eco-friendly methodology for determining FFA in biological materials. This is owing to inadequate characteristics of the methods, such as solvent consumption and reproducibility, among others. This study aims to investigate FFA determination methods to identify suitable approaches and introduce a fresh perspective.

A biocide delivery system composed of nanosilica loaded with neem oil is effective in reducing plant toxicity of this biocide

One possible way to reduce the environmental impacts of pesticides is by nanostructuring biocides in nanocarriers because this promotes high and localized biocidal activity and can avoid toxicity to non-target organisms. Neem oil (NO) is a natural pesticide with toxicity concerns to plants, fish, and other organisms. Thus, loading NO in a safe nanocarrier can contribute to minimizing its toxicity. For this study, we have characterized the integrity of a nanosilica-neem oil-based biocide delivery system (SiO₂NP#NO BDS) and evaluated its effectiveness in reducing NO toxicity by the Allium cepa test. NO, mainly consisted of unsaturated fatty acids, was well binded to the SiO₂NP with BTCA crosslinker. Overall, this material presented all of its pores filled with the NO with fatty acid groups at both the surface and bulk level of the nanoparticle. The thermal stability of NO was enhanced after synthesis, and the NO was released as zero-order model with a total of 20 days without burst release. The SiO₂NP#NO BDS was effective in reducing the individual toxicity of NO to the plant system. NO in single form inhibited the seed germination of A. cepa (EC₅₀ of 0.38 g L^-1), and the effect was no longer observed at the BDS condition. Contrarily to the literature, the tested NO did not present cyto- and geno-toxic effects in A. cepa, which may relate to the concentration level and composition.