Green Production of Bioactive Natural Products

Dear Colleagues,

Green production of bioactive naturally occurring compounds is based on a multidisciplinary approach, including non-conventional technologies and complementary expertise. Industrial production requires the development of environmentally benign methods enabling technically feasible and cost-effective processes. The application of highly efficient chemical conversions, including enantioselective transformations, has to be compared with biotechnological methods and heterogeneous enzymatic catalysis. Green extraction and selective isolation from natural sources are also successfully employed. All these strategies promote a process intensification taking advantage from enabling technologies that generate high-energy microenvironments. Green techniques, such as acoustic and hydrodynamic cavitation, microwaves, and ball milling, greatly improve reaction rates and extraction efficiency and provides additional benefits like reduction in cost and waste besides replacement of hazardous chemicals. Not less important is the use of supercritical-CO₂, pulsed electric fields, high-voltage electrical discharges, as well as ultrafiltration and nanofiltration.

Aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the new green challenges in the production of bioactive natural products launched by recent technological advances, new hybrid reactors and bio-based solvents.

Prof. Dr. Giancarlo Cravotto
Dr. Francisco J. Barba
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.