Nuno Nunes

Universidade da Madeira | UMA · ISOPlexis Banco de Germoplasma

Encapsulation in agriculture today is practically focused on agrochemicals such as pesticides , herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers to enhance the protective or nutritive aspects of the entrapped active ingredients. However, one of the most promising and environmentally friendly technologies, biostimulants, is hardly explored in this field. Enca...

Sewage sludge (SS) is derived from wastewater treatment plants and can be used as a biofertilizer when properly stabilized. This work aimed to evaluate SS application for agricultural production improvement. SS was tested on Porto Santo Island (Portugal). The experiment was randomly designed with three 25 m 2 plots for each treatment (2 SS concentr...

Growing conditions of Chlorella vulgaris, a green eukaryotic microalgae permitted in the EU for direct food consumption, were modulated to determine the optimal cultivation conditions to replicate in low-cost photobioreactors to boost productivity. Growth rate (d-1), biomass productivity (mg.L-1 .d-1), harvest cell density (x10 6 cells mL-1) and ce...

The lipid and fatty acid profiles of 14 marine macroalgal species from the Madeira Archipelago, including two green (Ulvales and Dasycladales), three red (Corallinales, Bonnemaisoniales, and Ceramiales) and nine brown (Fucales, Dictyotales, and Sphacelariales) species were characterised in order to determine their potential use for animal and human...

This work is integrated into the PHYTOBLUEFRAC project, which is promoted by the company Phytoalgae, Lda in partnership with the University of Madeira, with EEA Grants funding (PT-INNOVATION-0059). The aim of project is the study of microalgae for the development of new food supplements, derived from the lipid fraction, rich in carotenoids, fatty a...

Biorefinery is an integrated system that efficiently converts biomass, through physical, chemical, biochemical, and thermochemical procedures into various products. This strategy applied to macroalgae allows to obtain bioactive extracts, bioethanol, lipids, polysaccharides, phycobiliproteins and fertilizers. The usefulness of the bioactive extracts...

The PHYTOBLUEFRAC project is promoted by the company Phytoalgae, Lda in partnership with the University of Madeira for the development of new food supplements derived from the lipid fraction, which originate from the biomass of microalgae, and which have a high nutraceutical capacity capable of preventing and treating certain diseases that affect t...

The use of neglected residues as a fertilizer into agro-systems intensifies the biosustainability and circular economy. In this line of thought, a research strategy was developed to test the potential of solar dehydrated sewage sludge (DSS), produced locally using residues of Porto Santo ETAR as amendment in sweet potato assays. Sewage sludge is a...

Overexploitation of resources makes the reutilization of waste a focal topic of modern society, and the question of the kind of wastes that can be used is continuously raised. Sewage sludge (SS) is derived from the wastewater treatment plants, considered important underused biomass, and can be used as a biofertilizer when properly stabilized due to...

Seaweed beach-casts are a seasonal phenomenon that regularly deposits tons of algae biomass on beaches, which are usually disposed of in landfills. The present work aimed to contribute to the valorization of this biomass by studying bioactivities that reveal its potential in the pharmaceutical and/or cosmeceutical industries. Methanol and ethanol e...

Understanding the biochemical and antioxidant composition and capacity of a target biomass is the first step to its selectivity as functional food which can enhance the ability to promote health by reducing the risk of chronic diseases. The main purpose of this work was to employ response surface methodology (RSM) to determine the effect of the ind...

Three macroalgae collected at Madeira Island were included in this study to determine their potential for drug, nutraceutical, food, or supplement application. Fatty acid content was higher in Zonaria tournefortii (12.32 mg g⁻¹ dw) with 16.58% of PUFAs, eicosapentaenoic acid (C20:5ω3), and arachidonic acid (20:4ω6) having concentrations of 2.59 and...

Fifteen attached macroalgae from the Madeira Archipelago, comprising three green, three red and nine brown algal species, as well as two beach-cast macroalgal samples, collected along the north shore of Gran Canaria, were assessed for their biochemical properties. The analysis included the determination of total minerals, total carbohydrates, prote...

Iodine plays an important role in human metabolism and its deficiency is particularly harmful in pregnancy and childhood. It remains a major public health concern in many countries, especially in Portugal. The main purpose of this work was to develop a validated spectrophotometric analysis for a fast and reliable iodine quantification in algal samp...

Fucoxanthin is considered an important marine bioactive compound with biological properties with promising effects, namely on health. A simple and efficient analytical methodology is proposed for its quantification in seaweed biomass by using vortex-assisted solid-liquid microextraction (VASLME) followed by reversed phase high-performance liquid ch...

The understanding of the biochemical and antioxidant composition and capacity of target biomass is the first step to its selectivity as functional food. These can promote health benefits, such as reducing the risk of chronic diseases and enhancing the ability to promote health. The main purpose was to employ Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to de...

Iodine deficiency is one of the three most common nutritional deficiencies worldwide and is a global public health problem that affects particularly the young children, pregnant women and elderly. The consequences of iodine deficiency disorder (IDD) include goiter and cretinism. The traditional consumption of iodine via supplemented salt should be...

The main goal of the present work was to determine the nutraceutical potential of Asparagopsis taxiformis D. extracts from Madeira Archipelago south coast. Extraction methodologies consisted either/or in 72 hours stirring, at room temperature (M1), or 6 cycles of Soxhlet extraction (M2), both with re-extraction. Solvents used were distilled water,...

The increase of world population, global climate change and limitation of terrestrial resources dictate the need for new sources of food, feed and valuable compounds. In order to determine the potential of macroalgae as an alternative source for food supplement applications, a deeper understanding of its biochemical composition and nutrition charac...

Seaweeds are a rich source of iodine, an ideal raw material to develop iodine rich extracts. Iodine plays an important role in human metabolism and its intake deficiency is particularly harmful in pregnancy and childhood and it remains a major public health concern in many countries, especially in Portugal. The method described includes Mahesh et a...

Biochemical composition and antioxidant activity were assessed in seven seaweeds from Madeira Archipelago, namely, the chlorophyte (Ulva lactuca), the rhodophytes (Asparagopsis taxiformis, Chondrus crispus, Galaxaura rugosa, Grateloupia lanceola and Nemalion elminthoides), and the phaeophyte (Zonaria tournefortii). Seaweed mineral content varied fr...

Total lipids (TLs) and fatty acids (FAs) composition of 3 macroalgae, Rhodophyta (Asparagopsis taxiformis (Delile) Trevisan de Saint-Léon 1845), Chlorophyta (Ulva lactuca Linnaeus 1753) and Phaeophyta (Zonaria tournefortii (J.V.Lamouroux) Montagne 1846) were assessed. TLs were determined using Bligh and Dyer (1959) method of which Z. tournefortii (...

Iodine content of seven seaweed species from Madeira Archipelago were evaluated, using methodology initially described by Sandell and Kolthoff (1937). Asparagopsis taxiformis D., presented the highest concentration (1203.34 mg.100g-1 dw), followed by Galaxaura rugosa J.V.L. (41.76 mg.100g-1 dw), Chondrus crispus S. (22.12 mg.100g-1 dw), Zonaria tou...

The biochemical composition and antioxidant activity were determined in 7 selected seaweeds from Madeira Archipelago, Portugal. Asparagopsis taxiformis D. (figure 1) was found to have substantial quantities of protein, fat, fiber and starch, compared to the other seaweeds analysed. Zonaria tournefortii L. (figure 3), an unexplored seaweed, was foun...

Overview of the implementation of Phase 2 of Blue Iodine II project

This work was developed in order to evaluate nutritionally regional crop varieties of Ipomoea batatas L. (sweetpotato) from Madeira and Azores. A total of 18 samples were analysed, of which 11 are varieties from Madeira and 7 from Azores. The main objective of this study was to compare the nutritional and mineral composition of a number of varietie...