Analytical Methods for Characterization and Isolation of Natural Products

Dear Colleagues,

Natural products can provide us with a plethora of bioactive compounds. In fact, traditional medicines have used natural products, or their extracts, for healing since the beginning of humankind. However, nature is also an incredible source of toxins and venoms.

Natural products are a growing field of investigation for the development of new treatments and drugs derived from organisms of every kingdom. This includes from the simplest unicellular bacteria to the most complex eukaryote that can be imagined. In this sense, secondary metabolites of plants and algae are sources of chemical entities with enormous potential. To better understand the effects and the potential of these secondary metabolites, the evaluation of their chemical compositions is essential; however, this is quite challenging when dealing with the analytical steps of characterization since they are very complex mixtures that should be isolated from very complex matrices. Therefore, extraction and isolation steps are generally necessary. Moreover, an important trend in the last few years has been the application of green chemistry principles to these extraction and characterization processes, trying to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (OSD https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/). Therefore, the environmental and social impacts can be taken into account and quantified.

In this regard, this Special Issue is a unique opportunity to gather state-of-the-art analytical methods and isolation techniques applied to natural products. This topic involves scientific communities working in the extraction of bioactives, bioprospection, ethnopharmacology, folk medicine, natural toxins, or food contaminants and also involves those laboratories working on the revalorization and characterization of bioactive phytochemicals from any natural products and wastes.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present the state of the art of the sample preparation and analytical methodologies developed for monitoring the presence of pesticides and chemical residues in agrifood matrices, and to investigate bioactive phytochemicals from agrifood matrices, byproducts and wastes, providing an overview of the main trends in the area. The topics include but are not limited to the following:

- Advances in sample preparation;

- Green analytical chemistry applied to natural products;

- Chromatographic and nonchromatographic analytical techniques;

- Electroseparations;

- Spectrometrical and spectrochemical techniques;

- Chemometrical optimization;

- Pollutants in natural products: organic, inorganic and toxins;

- Bioactive compounds in natural products;

- Analytical chemistry in agrifood waste valorization;

- Bioprospection and biorefinery;

- Novel solvents in natural product analysis and extraction;

- Green metrics applied to the isolation of natural products;

- Omic approaches;

- Multidimensional separations;

- The integration of extraction techniques;

- The integration of extraction and analytical techniques.

Dr. Jose A. Mendiola
Dr. Lidia Montero
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-anonymized 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.