Excretion of hazardous pharmaceutical residues causes the emergence of toxic potential to the environment. Nanomedicine is commonly associated with nanoparticulate drug delivery to offer the improved therapeutic effects at a lower dose for disease treatments. Green chemistry aims to reduce or exclude the utilisation or generation of toxic substances in the design, manufacture and application of chemical products. The use of non-toxic and biodegradable materials in pharmaceutical formulations could minimize the adverse effects of pharmaceutical residues entering the environment in the first place. In our study, bovine serum albumin, a non-toxic, biodegradable and biocompatible protein, was used in the formation of nanoparticulate drug delivery systems. Glucose was used instead of glutaraldehyde to modify albumin nanoparticles for berberine delivery in order to prevent the potential toxicity to humans and the environment. These nanoparticles highly inhibited LX-2 cell growth and exhibited stronger caspase 3 activation at a lower dose when compared with free drug in vitro. Nanoparticles with berberine at doses of 1 and 2 μg g−1 could rescue mice from CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity in vivo. Green glucose-bovine serum albumin nanoparticles could be safe and effective to deliver berberine at low doses in liver fibrosis treatment.

Activated charcoal was prepared by the pyrolysis of coffee ground waste residues impregnated by phosphoric acid and potassium hydroxide at 600 °C. In our study, spent coffee was collected from the university canteen and the prepared activated charcoal impregnated with potassium hydroxide gave the highest surface area of 708.1 ± 0.1 m2 g−1, which was determined by using the methylene blue adsorption method. The activated charcoal was characterized by using scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. In order to ensure that the activated charcoal produced is bio-safe, all samples were tested for possible toxic substances, including toxic heavy metals by using ICP-OES, and toxic organics such as acrylamide by using chromatography methods. In addition, all samples showed no ecotoxicity towards Escherichia coli and no cytotoxicity toward human HaCaT skin cells. The phosphoric acid activated charcoal demonstrated a high Qmax of 95.2 and 38.2 mg g−1, respectively for lead and copper adsorption. For potassium hydroxide activated charcoal, the values of Qmax were found to be 45.4 and 21.2 mg g−1, respectively for lead and copper adsorption.

This work describes the preparation of quinoline compounds as possible anti-bacterial agents. The synthesized quinoline derivatives show anti-bacterial activity towards Staphylococcus aureus. It is interesting to observe that the synthetic 5,7-dibromo-2-methylquinolin-8-ol (4) shows a similar minimum inhibitory concentration of 6.25 μg/mL as compared to that of methicillin (3.125 μg/mL) against Staphylococcus aureus.

The quinolinium chloride salt of 8-hydroxyqinolinecarbaldehyde (2-Formyl-8-hydroxy-quinolinium chloride) was prepared as Galipea longiflora alkaloid analogue and its anticancer activity was evaluated both in vitro and in vivo. This chloride salt was found to show certain degree of selectivity between hepatoma cells and normal hepatocytes in vitro. Athymic nude mice Hep3B xenograft model further demonstrated that this 2-Formyl-8-hydroxy-quinolinium chloride could execute strong anti-tumour activity with the identification of extensive necrotic feature from the tumour xenograft and limited adverse toxicological effect.2-Formyl-8-hydroxy-quinolinium chloride was prepared as Galipea longiflora alkaloid analogue and its anticancer activity was evaluated. Representative histopathological sections showed (a) significant tumour necrosis could be identified in 2-Formyl-8-hydroxy-quinolinium chloride-treated group while (b) good cellular integrity could be observed in vehicle treated group on day 23 (10 days after stopping the treatment).Download high-res image (427KB)Download full-size image