Bioactive Compounds from Biomass

Figure 8.1 Basic scheme showing the proposed workflow for the screening of bioactive compounds from biomass.

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, microalgal biomass contains not only oil but also a wide range of valuable ingredients, including carotenoids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, polymers, peptides, vitamins, enzymes, amino acids, and so on. Some of them exhibit significant market potential whilst some have already achieved commercial success. Table 4.4 shows the health benefits of some of the main bioactive compounds. From a biorefinery point of view, the residual biomass after oil extraction may be used as food additives, nutraceuticals and animal feed. 

The chemical composition of tobacco leaves and biomass waste has received a considerable amount of attention in recent years, and tobacco waste is considered to be a good source of a large number of bioactive substances. Tobacco waste contains a variety of valuable chemical constituents, such as nicotine, solanesol, sclareol, vitamin E, riboflavin, tobacco protein, etc. They can be obtained by a series of chemical extraction and refining methods. The bioactive compounds can be used in pharmaceutical, chemical, and other industries. In the following sections, the active compounds from tobacco waste are reviewed by metabolite type. 

The isolation of the bioactive constituent(s) from a given biomass can be a challenging task, particularly if the active constituent of interest is present in very low amounts. The actual procedure will depend to a large extent on the nature of the sample extract a marine sample, for example, may well reqnire a somewhat different extraction and pnriflcation process from that derived from a plant sam-ple. Nevertheless, the essential feature in all of these methods is the nse of an appropriate and reproducible bioassay to guide the isolation of the active compound. It is also extremely important that compounds that are known to inhibit a particnlar assay, or those that are nuisance com-ponnds be dereplicated (identified and eliminated) as early in the process as possible. Procednres for doing this have been discnssed, " and varions new approaches to isolation and strnctnre elncidation have been reviewed. " ... 

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