Biomaterials have been intensively investigated due to the increase in the elderly population and high prevalence of several disorders, such as cardiovascular and orthopedic diseases. Polymeric and composite polymeric materials in combination with different processing techniques, such as electrospinning, solution blow spinning, ultrathin film preparation, and 3D printing are promising for obtaining biomaterials with patient-specific applications. Here, we provide a review on recent advances and perspectives for synthetic and natural polymers as well as composites in the design of biomaterials. After introducing basic information about biomaterials, we describe the fundamentals of manufacturing techniques and highlight possible biomedical applications.

Eutrophication is an undesirable environmental process that occurs in water bodies affected by high concentrations of phosphate. Different economic sectors are responsible for discharge effluents with extremely high phosphate content. Therefore, is important to develop technologies capable of remove phosphate from these effluents, before that reach other and larger water bodies. This work proposes the use of layered double hydroxide (LDH) as an adsorbent matrix for phosphate removal from aqueous solution. Different isomorphic structure of LDH ([Mg-Al]-LDH and [Zn-Al]-LDH) were employed to incorporate loadings of phosphate by ion exchange. The obtained materials were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and thermal analysis (TG/DTG). The crystalline structure of [Mg-Al]-LDH was preserved after phosphate adsorption, however the performance was low in comparison to [Zn-Al]-LDH, for which a high phosphate removal efficiency of 116.07 mg P. g-1 of LDH was achieved. The [Zn-Al]-LDH material showed good potential for use as matrix for the adsorption of phosphate in effluents.

ABSTRACT Lactic acid, which can be obtained through fermentation, is an interesting compound because it can be utilized in different fields, such as in the food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries as a bio-based molecule for bio-refinery. In addition, lactic acid has recently gained more interest due to the possibility of manufacturing poly(lactic acid), a green polymer that can replace petroleum-derived plastics and be applied in medicine for the regeneration of tissues and in sutures, repairs and implants. One of the great advantages of fermentation is the possibility of using agribusiness wastes to obtain optically pure lactic acid. The conventional batch process of fermentation has some disadvantages such as inhibition by the substrate or the final product. To avoid these problems, this study was focused on improving the production of lactic acid through different feeding strategies using whey, a residue of agribusiness. The downstream process is a significant bottleneck because cost-effective methods of producing high-purity lactic acid are lacking. Thus, the investigation of different methods for the purification of lactic acid was one of the aims of this work. The pH-stat strategy showed the maximum production of lactic acid of 143.7 g/L. Following purification of the lactic acid sample, recovery of reducing sugars and protein and color removal were 0.28%, 100% and 100%, respectively.