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Olive Leaf Extract Successfully Incorporated into Biomedical Polymer Filaments

Spanish researchers successfully incorporate olive leaf extract into biodegradable polymer filaments for potential use in biomedical applications.
By Simon Roots
Jun. 16, 2025 18:11 UTC
Summary Summary

Researchers from the University of Cádiz have suc­cess­fully incor­po­rated olive leaf extract into PLCL fil­a­ments, a biodegrad­able copoly­mer used in bio­med­ical appli­ca­tions, to cre­ate fil­a­ments with ther­a­peu­tic prop­er­ties for soft-tis­sue engi­neer­ing and drug deliv­ery. The study high­lights the poten­tial of using super­crit­i­cal fluid impreg­na­tion to enhance the bioavail­abil­ity of bioac­tive com­pounds from olive waste, offer­ing a sus­tain­able and effec­tive method for deliv­er­ing antiox­i­dants with poten­tial med­ical appli­ca­tions.

A team of researchers from the Chemical Engineering and Food Technology Department at the University of Cádiz, Spain, has pub­lished research on incor­po­rat­ing olive leaf extract into bio­med­ical poly­mer fil­a­ments.

The fil­a­ments in ques­tion com­prise poly(L‑lactic acid-co-capro­lac­tone) (PLCL), a biodegrad­able, non-toxic copoly­mer used in bio­med­ical appli­ca­tions. 

PLCL typ­i­cally degrades within the human body for up to three years, mak­ing it well-suited for appli­ca­tions that require con­trolled release or even­tual resorp­tion into the body. Such appli­ca­tions include soft-tis­sue engi­neer­ing and sus­tained drug deliv­ery.

See Also:New Study Suggests Olive Leaf Extract Could Help Treat Type 2 Diabetes

The authors cite the grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the need to find new ways to val­orize agri-food waste as part of a move toward a sus­tain­able bio-econ­omy model. 

Olive waste prod­ucts are the focus of a sig­nif­i­cant amount of research in this regard, espe­cially in Spain. 

They are rich in numer­ous bioac­tive com­pounds, such as oleu­ropein, hydrox­y­ty­rosol and phe­no­lic acids, which have demon­strated ther­a­peu­tic prop­er­ties, includ­ing antivi­ral, antimi­cro­bial, anti-inflam­ma­tory and antiox­i­dant activ­i­ties.

These prop­er­ties are also cen­tral to the team’s ratio­nale. Antioxidants, in par­tic­u­lar, are known to have sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial in the treat­ment of dis­eases of global con­cern, includ­ing can­cers, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases, and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases

Their ben­e­fi­cial effects depend mainly on their bioac­ces­si­bil­ity and bioavail­abil­ity, how­ever, and main­tain­ing ther­a­peu­tic con­cen­tra­tions is not always pos­si­ble with con­ven­tional deliv­ery meth­ods, mak­ing PLCL a prime can­di­date.

Following the suc­cess­ful prepa­ra­tion of olive leaf extract, a series of assays and other tests were con­ducted to con­firm its antiox­i­dant capac­ity and anti-inflam­ma­tory activ­ity at suf­fi­ciently high lev­els for poten­tial med­ical appli­ca­tions. 

In addi­tion, key phe­no­lic com­pounds, such as oleu­ropein, hydrox­y­ty­rosol and lute­olin-7-glu­co­side, were detected in suit­able con­cen­tra­tions.

The incor­po­ra­tion of olive leaf extract into PLCL fil­a­ments was then attempted using super­crit­i­cal impreg­na­tion, a tech­nique that has been suc­cess­fully applied to other poly­mers, such as PETG and PLGA. 

The process relies on the prop­er­ties of super­crit­i­cal flu­ids, which are between those of liq­uids and gases.

Supercritical fluid impreg­na­tion offers numer­ous advan­tages over con­ven­tional meth­ods. These include a vir­tual lack of sur­face ten­sion, highly effi­cient deliv­ery, rapid dif­fu­sion into the car­rier matrix, the abil­ity to con­trol drug load­ing and the elim­i­na­tion of organic sol­vent residues. The last of these is par­tic­u­larly rel­e­vant in the con­text of sus­tain­able man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Traditional organic sol­vents, such as those used exten­sively in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, pose sig­nif­i­cant eco­log­i­cal and health risks due to their volatil­ity, tox­i­c­ity and per­sis­tence in the envi­ron­ment. 

In con­trast, super­crit­i­cal car­bon diox­ide, the sol­vent used in this process, is chem­i­cally inert, non­toxic and non-flam­ma­ble. Carbon diox­ide extrac­tion is also con­sid­ered sus­tain­able due to its closed-loop sys­tems and the abil­ity to cap­ture and reuse car­bon diox­ide, min­i­miz­ing waste and energy con­sump­tion.

By sub­ject­ing the poly­mer to a super­crit­i­cal fluid envi­ron­ment under care­fully con­trolled con­di­tions, olive leaf extract mol­e­cules were suc­cess­fully dri­ven into the poly­mer matrix. 

The researchers adjusted vari­ables such as tem­per­a­ture, pres­sure, co-sol­vent ratio and impreg­na­tion time until the con­di­tions were suf­fi­ciently opti­mized to yield fil­a­ments with uni­formly dis­trib­uted active com­pounds that pre­served the bio­log­i­cal activ­ity of the extract. 

Additionally, analy­sis of the material’s mechan­i­cal prop­er­ties revealed that the impreg­nated fil­a­ments retained suf­fi­cient strength and flex­i­bil­ity for bio­med­ical use.

The authors believe that their find­ings con­firm the suit­abil­ity of PLCL fil­a­ments impreg­nated with olive leaf extract for a range of poten­tial bio­med­ical appli­ca­tions, offer­ing enhanced bio­com­pat­i­bil­ity, reduced inflam­ma­tory responses and improved over­all per­for­mance due to the sus­tained release of nat­ural antiox­i­dants.

They note, how­ever, that sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges remain and that fur­ther research is needed, par­tic­u­larly in vitro and in vivo stud­ies.



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