Ana C.Q. Silva

University of Aveiro | UA · CICECO - Centre for Research in Ceramics and Composite Materials

This study focuses on the preparation of layered bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) patches for drug delivery and wound healing in the context of herpes labialis. Nanostructured patches were prepared by selective aqueous diffusion of acyclovir (ACV, antiviral drug), hyaluronic acid (HA, skin healing promoter), and glycerol (GLY, plasticizer and humectan...

Polysaccharides and proteins are extensively used for the design of advanced sustainable materials. Owing to the high aspect ratio and specific surface area, ease of modification, high mechanical strength and thermal stability, renewability, and biodegradability, biopolymeric nanofibrils are gaining growing popularity amongst the catalog of nanostr...

The aim of this study is to prepare dissolvable biopolymeric microneedle (MN) patches comprised solely of sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), a water‐soluble cellulose derivative with good film‐forming ability, by micromoulding technology for the transdermal delivery of diclofenac sodium salt (DCF). The microneedles with ca. 456 μm in height displ...

Natural polymers have emerged as promising candidates for the sustainable development of materials in areas ranging from food packaging and biomedicine to energy storage and electronics. In tandem, there is a growing interest in the design of advanced materials devised from naturally abundant and renewable feedstocks, in alignment with the principl...

Cellulose, the most abundant natural polymer, is a versatile polysaccharide that is being exploited to manufacture innovative blends, composites, and hybrid materials in the form of membranes, films, coatings, hydrogels, and foams, as well as particles at the micro and nano scales. The application fields of cellulose micro and nanoparticles run the...

Textiles have witnessed tremendous progress in the last decades, from the simple use as cloths to protective and easy-to-care fabrics with active and smart functions, such as antimicrobial, insect-repellent, water-repellent, odour-control, flame-retardant, among other functions. These functionalities are not intrinsic to textiles and, thus, are mai...

The utilization of biobased materials for the fabrication of naturally derived ion-exchange membranes is breezing a path to sustainable separators for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). In this investigation, bacterial nanocellulose (BNC, a bacterial polysaccharide) and lignosulfonates (LS, a by-product of the sulfite pulping process), were bl...

Nanostructured patches composed of bacterial nanocellulose (BNC), hyaluronic acid (HA) and diclofenac (DCF) were developed, envisioning the treatment of aphthous stomatitis. Freestanding patches were prepared via diffusion of aqueous solutions of HA and DCF, with different concentrations of DCF, into the wet BNC three-dimensional porous network. Th...

Cancer is the second leading cause of non-accidental death in the world, accounting for roughly 9.6 million deaths in 2018. In the latter years, research in this domain has grown exponentially, as a way to provide deep insights into this malignancy, but also new tools for early diagnosis and efficient personalized treatment options. Microfluidic la...

Conductive natural-based separators for application in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) were fabricated by combining a bacterial polysaccharide, i.e. bacterial cellulose (BC), and an algae sulphated polysaccharide, i.e. fucoidan (Fuc). The diffusion of fucoidan aqueous solution containing a natural-based cross-linker, viz. tannic acid, into t...