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Euclea natalensis Root Extract as a Green Acid-Base Indicator: pKa Determination and Application in Acid-Base Titration

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Abstract

This work presents Euclea natalensis root extracts as a Green acid-base indicator, focusing on the application in titration and determination of pKa. The Euclea natalensis root extracts were obtained by heating the biomass in water at 60 °C for 1 h. The obtained extracts were applied for acid-base titration, and the pKa value was determined and compared to bromothymol blue and methyl orange, conventional acid-base indicators. Furthermore, the pKa of some naphthoquinones that occur in Euclea natalensis root were predicted using MolG pKa web server and compared with experimental pKa value. The results showed that the Euclea natalensis extract presented a titration performance comparable to common synthetic acid-based indicators (bromothymol blue-NaOH/HCl, required volume-11.8 ± 0.1 mL and Euclea natalensis, NaOH/HCl, required volume 11,6 ± 0.1 mL). Euclea natalensis root extracts presented a pKa of 7.01, corroborating the predicted pKa values of two main candidate compounds in Euclea natalensis root. These two compounds may cause color changes in Euclea natalensis root extracts in acidic media and basic solutions. These results showed that the Euclea natalensis root extracts are potential green and locally available acid-base indicators. However, additional work is still necessary to understand the stability and which compound or compounds are the core for color change.

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Data Availability

The data are available by request.

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Acknowledgements

The University of Rovuma - Instituto Superior de Desenvolvimento Rural e Biociências provided all support for the laboratory infrastructure to carry out the research; likewise, we thank the Agrarian Institute of Lichinga (IAL) for the material support and laboratory. We also thanks CAPES, FAPESC and CNPq, because DLPM, TAA, CMAM, MBSJ and NFN are scholarship recipients from these funding agencies. However, the present work did not receive any specific grant from CAPES, FAPESC, and CNPq.   

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The authors have not disclosed any funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Studies in Science and Technology (NECET), Department of Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics, Instituto Superior de Desenvolvimento Rural e Biociências (ISDRB), University of Rovuma, Lichinga, Niassa, Mozambique

    Chalosse João Raimundo, Neuana Fernando Neuana, Célio Matias Airone Macalia, Domingos Lusitâneo Pier Macuvele & Taualia Achira Aly

  2. Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência e Engenharia de Materiais-PPGCEM, Universidade Federal de Amazonas, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

    Célio Matias Airone Macalia

  3. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência e Engenharia de Materiais, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil

    Neuana Fernando Neuana

  4. Departamento de Engenharia Química e de Alimentos, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil

    Marcel Bueno Santana Junior & Domingos Lusitâneo Pier Macuvele

  5. Universidade WUTIVI, Belo Horizonte, Maputo, Mozambique

    Germildo Juvenal Muchave

  6. Green Technologies Laboratory, Escola de Química, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-909, Brazil

    Germildo Juvenal Muchave

  7. Instituto de Química e Biotecnologia (IQB/UFAL), Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Maceió, Brazil

    Taualia Achira Aly

Authors
  1. Chalosse João Raimundo
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  2. Germildo Juvenal Muchave
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  3. Neuana Fernando Neuana
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  4. Célio Matias Airone Macalia
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  5. Marcel Bueno Santana Junior
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Contributions

CR: Experimentation, Characterizations and Data Curation; GJM:Performed FTIR and UV analysis, and discussed the results. MBSJ: Determined the total anthocyanins and discussed the results, Writing—review and editing. NFN, CMAM, DLPM and TAA: Writing—review and editing, Supervision, Conceptualization, Methodology, Funding, Data Curation, Writing—original draft, Funding.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Neuana Fernando Neuana, Célio Matias Airone Macalia, Domingos Lusitâneo Pier Macuvele or Taualia Achira Aly.

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Raimundo, C.J., Muchave, G.J., Neuana, N.F. et al. Euclea natalensis Root Extract as a Green Acid-Base Indicator: pKa Determination and Application in Acid-Base Titration. Waste Biomass Valor (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-023-02384-1

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