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Nowadays, drug delivery has an important role in medical therapy. The use of biopolymers in developing drug delivery systems (DDSs) is increasingly attracting attention due to their remarkable and numerous advantages, in contrast to conventional polymers. Biopolymers have many advantages (biodegradability, biocompatibility, renewability, affordability, and availability), which are extremely important for developing materials with applications in the biomedical field. Additionally, biopolymers are appropriate when they improve functioning and have a number of positive effects on human life. Therefore, this review presents the most used biopolymers for biomedical applications, especially in drug delivery. In addition, by combining different biopolymers DDSs with tailored functional properties (e.g., physical properties, biodegradability) can be developed. This review summarizes and provides data on the progress of research on biopolymers (chitosan, alginate, starch, cellulose, albumin, silk fibroin, collagen, and gelatin) used in DDSs, their preparation, and mechanism of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochar gained attention due to its definite physico-chemical characteristics and because it is a cost-effective and efficient adsorbent. In this paper, commercial biochar was tested for the removal of tartrazine from aqueous solutions. Thus, the optimum experimental conditions were determined for several parameters (pH, temperature, initial concentration of tartrazine, biochar dose, and contact time). The concentration of tartrazine residues was determined using UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The best experimental results were obtained at 1 mg L−1 concentration of tartrazine, pH 2, 30 °C, 18 min, and 0.9 g L−1 adsorbent dose. The maximum removal efficiency of tartrazine obtained in optimum conditions was 90.18%. The experimental data were analyzed by the isotherm and kinetic models. The isotherm and kinetics of tartrazine removal on biochar follow the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetics, respectively. According to the Langmuir isotherm model, the biochar showed a maximum adsorption capacity of 3.28 mg g−1. In addition, biochar demonstrated a good reuse potential and therefore can be used for the removal of tartrazine from aqueous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]