Investigation to Obtain Polyols from Residual Frying Oil

. Polymeric materials based on petroleum have generated a major problem for the environment because they are produced by non-renewable sources. Many studies are being conducted to propose alternatives to obtain polymers from renewable raw materials sources. The disadvantage of this alternative is the use of food sources for polymer production but this is avoided when using the residual frying oil. Aiming to obtain polymer-based urethanes, pretreated residual frying oil samples were submitted to various conditions of hydroxylation and analyzed by FT-IR, where it was possible to observe the presence of-OH groups. To optimize the process of hydroxylation a new research was conducted to determine the concentrations of formic acid and hydrogen peroxide that can generate polyols with high levels of hydroxylation index, suitable for the formation of urethanes.

Posttranslational protein modifications, with special attention to collagen and elastin

It is apparent that significant progress has been made in our understanding of the biosynthesis, modifications, and maturation of collagen and elastin. We now recognize and partially understand special reactions involved in hydroxylations within the cell and complex cross-linking processes occurring outside the cell. Recent experiments (191) have shown that in human diploid fibroblast cultures of limited doubling potential (191) the hydroxylation of collagen prolyl residues appears to be "age" or passage-level dependent. With increasing passage level of these cultures, both the ascorbate requirements and the extent of collagen hydroxylation decrease. "Young" cell cultures have a strong requirement for complete hydroxylation and without ascorbate there is only about 50% of the normal level. "Middle-aged" cultures show higher hydroxylation without and full hydroxylation with ascorbate, whereas "old" (or cultures close to "senescence") are incapable of full hydroxylation with or without ascorbic acid. Although the overall system may show some deterioration with increasing passage levels, it appears that with increasing passage levels other components in the cell replace the ascorbate dependence of the hydroxylase system to a greater exten. In some ways, aging WI-38 cultures begin to resemble some transformed cells in their biochemical reactions, although they continue to remain diploid and eventually lose the ability to replicate. It is not yet known whether old animals can produce collagen, which may now be underhydroxylated, perhaps contributing to certain senescent changes. Careful examination of the hydroxylation index of collagen produced in organoid cultures of tissue biopsies as a function of donor age might be informative, particularly if one looks at the quality of collagen by employing collagenase and other proteolytic digests with collagen (191). One could comare the levels of frequent and characteristic peptide triplet sequences such as Gly-Pro-Hyp to Gly-Pro-Pro, Gly-Ala-Hyp to Gly-Ala-Pro, or Gly-Pro-Hyl to Gly-Pro-Lys and others for evaluation of hydroxylation throughout the entire molecule or at selected sequences.