Hemp oil is being explored as a renewable chemical feedstock for producing more sustainable plastics and resins.

In this study, researchers modified hemp oil through epoxidation and maleinization to develop a fully bio-based epoxy resin system using anhydride hardeners.

The findings show how hemp-derived oils could help replace some petroleum-based ingredients in advanced polymer materials while supporting the development of more sustainable manufacturing technologies.

“The present work aims to develop thermosetting resins using epoxidized hemp oil (EHO) as a bio-based epoxy matrix and a mixture of methyl nadic anhydride (MNA) and maleinized hemp oil (MHO) in different ratios as hardeners.

The results show that the mixture with only MNA as a hardener is characterized by high stiffness and brittleness. In addition, this material is characterized by a high curing time of around 170 min. On the other hand, as the MHO content in the resin increases, the mechanical strength properties decrease and the ductile properties increase.

Therefore, it can be stated that the presence of MHO confers flexible properties to the mixtures. In this case, it was determined that the thermosetting resin with balanced properties and high bio-based content contains 25% MHO and 75% MNA. Specifically, this mixture obtained a 180% higher impact energy absorption and a 195% lower Young’s modulus than the sample with 100% MNA.

Also, it has been observed that this mixture has significantly shorter times than the mixture containing 100% MNA (around 78 min), which is of great concern at an industrial level. Therefore, thermosetting resins with different mechanical and thermal properties can be obtained by varying the MHO and MNA content.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36987185

“After compiling all the data obtained, it can be concluded that maleinized hemp oil (MHO) is an excellent crosslinking agent next to methyl nadic anhydride (MNA), which is of petrochemical origin, for epoxidized hemp oil (EHO).

After performing the mechanical tests, it was observed that the sample containing 100% MNA (100MNA) presented with high rigidity and brittleness, whereas, with the addition of MHO in different amounts, it was observed that the material showed greater ductility and flexibility.”

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/15/6/1404

Hemp oil is being investigated as a renewable ingredient for improving the performance of bio-based plastics.

In this study, researchers used maleinized hemp oil as a biobased plasticizer in blends of polylactic acid and thermoplastic starch, examining how it affected flexibility, compatibility and material properties.

The findings show how chemically modified hemp oil could help improve biodegradable polymer formulations while reducing reliance on conventional petroleum-derived plasticizers.

“In this study, hemp seed oil was reacted with maleic anhydride in an ene reaction to obtain maleinized hemp seed oil (MHO).

The use of MHO as a plasticizer and compatibilizer has been studied for polylactic acid (PLA) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) blends (80/20, respectively). By mechanical, thermal and morphological characterizations, the addition of MHO provides a dual effect, acting as plasticizer and compatibilizer between these two partially miscible biopolymers.

The addition of MHO up to 7.5 phr (parts by weight of MHO per hundred parts of PLA and TPS) revealed a noticeable increase in the ductile properties, reaching an elongation at break 155% higher than the PLA/TPS blend. Furthermore, contrary to what has been observed with maleinized oils such as linseed oil, the thermal properties do not decrease significantly as a result of the plasticizing effect, due to the compatibilizing behavior of the MHO and the natural antioxidants present in the oil.

Finally, a disintegration test was carried out in aerobic conditions at 58 °C, for 24 days, to demonstrate that the incorporation of the MHO, although causing a slight delay, does not impair the biodegradability of the blend, obtaining total degradation in 24 days.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33922939

“MHO is shown to be a potential plasticizer and compatibilizer of organic origin, to be used in different polymeric blends without affecting their biodegradability.”

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/9/1392

Hemp seed is increasingly recognized as more than a source of plant protein and healthy fats—it also contains a wide range of nutrients and bioactive compounds with potential relevance to human health.

This review examines the nutritional quality of industrial hemp seed, including its proteins, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, fiber and other functional components.

The findings highlight hemp seed as a nutrient-dense food ingredient with potential applications in healthy diets and functional foods.

“Hempseeds, the edible fruits of the Cannabis sativa L. plant, were initially considered a by-product of the hemp technical fibre industry. Nowadays, following the restorationing of the cultivation of C. sativa L. plants containing an amount of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) <0.3% or 0.2% (industrial hemp) there is a growing interest for the hempseeds production due to their high nutritional value and functional features.

The goal of this review is to examine the scientific literature concerning the nutritional and functional properties of hempseeds. Furthermore, we revised the scientific literature regarding the potential use of hempseeds and their derivatives as a dietary supplement for the prevention and treatment of inflammatory and chronic-degenerative diseases on animal models and humans too.

In the first part of the work, we provide information regarding the genetic, biochemical, and legislative aspects of this plant that are, in our opinion essential to understand the difference between “industrial” and “drug-type” hemp. In the final part of the review, the employment of hempseeds by the food industry as livestock feed supplement and as ingredient to enrich or fortify daily foods has also revised.

Overall, this review intends to encourage further and comprehensive investigations about the adoption of hempseeds in the functional foods field.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32610691

“Overall, the studies performed on animal models have highlighted that there is some evidence about the protective and beneficial effects of hempseeds dietary supplementation especially on inflammatory and chronic-degenerative diseases such as CVDs and neurodegenerative ones, whereas, from the human studies some benefits for the atopic dermatitis treatment, certain blood parameters, and inflammatory responses modulation were emerged following the hempseed oil dietary intake.”

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/7/1935

Hemp seed is increasingly being incorporated into everyday foods as a way to improve nutritional value while creating new plant-based products.

In this study, researchers added hemp seed ingredients to pasta and evaluated how the enrichment affected its nutritional composition, texture, cooking characteristics and overall quality.

The findings show how hemp seed can be used to enhance conventional foods while maintaining properties important for consumer acceptance.

“Hemp seed (Cannabis sativa L.) contain large amounts of nutrients, e.g. protein, dietary fiber, minerals, and unsaturated fatty acids, which make them a good fortifying component in food production.

The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of hemp addition on the physicochemical properties, cooking quality, texture parameters and sensory properties of durum wheat pasta. The samples were fortified with 5-40% of commercially available hemp flour or 2.5-10% of hemp cake obtained from hemp seed oil pressing.

Our study showed that the addition of hemp seed raw materials led to an increase in the protein, total dietary fiber (TDF), ash and fat content in the pasta samples.

Due to its lower granulation and higher nutritional value, hemp flour was found to be a better raw material for the fortification of pasta than hemp cake. Pasta enriched with hemp flour at the level of 30-40% contains 19.53-28.87% d.m. of protein and 17.02-21.49% d.m. of TDF and according to the EU, a definition can be described as a high-protein and high-fiber products.

All enriched pasta samples were also characterized by safe Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) content, and their sensory properties were accepted by consumers.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33735229

“Consumers are looking for new plant-based raw materials that could be a good source of protein. One of the high-protein raw materials, which is increasingly becoming part of a healthy balanced human diet is hemp (Cannabis sativa L.).”

“Hemp seeds are a rich source of nutrients.”

“The results of the research indicate the possibility of using hemp components to improve the nutritional value of pasta while maintaining its safety.

Both hemp raw materials allow enriching pasta with protein, dietary fiber, mainly its insoluble fraction and minerals.

Pasta with 30% addition of hemp flour can be described as a high-protein and high-fiber product and at the same time characterized by satisfactory organoleptic properties and good cooking qualities.”

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248790

Hemp seed oil may have value far beyond food and nutrition. Researchers converted the oil into a flexible, transparent thermosetting material and reinforced it with halloysite nanotubes, producing bionanocomposites with improved thermal stability, stiffness, strength, ductility, and toughness. The sustainable material could provide an alternative to petroleum-based polymers for applications such as packaging

“Hemp seed (Cannabis sativa L.) oil comprises a variety of beneficial unsaturated triglycerides with well-documented nutritional and health benefits. However, it can become rancid over a relatively short time period, leading to increased industrial costs and waste of a valuable product.

The development of sustainable polymers is presented as a strategy, where both the presence of unsaturation and peroxide content could be effectively used to alleviate both the waste and financial burden.

After the reaction with peroxyacetic acid, the incorporation of halloysite nanotubes (HNTs), and the subsequent thermal curing, without the need for organic solvents or interfacial modifiers, flexible transparent materials with a low glass-transition temperature were developed.

The improvement in the thermal stability and both the static and dynamic mechanical properties of the bionanocomposites were significantly enhanced with the well-dispersed HNT filler. At an optimum concentration of 0.5 wt % HNTs, a simultaneous increase in stiffness, strength, ductility, and toughness was observed in comparison to the unfilled cured resin.

These sustainable food-waste-derived bionanocomposites may provide an interesting alternative to petroleum-based materials, particularly for low-load-bearing applications, such as packaging.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28240903

https://pubs.acs.org/jpcbfk/article-abstract/121/11/2454/1103644/Flexible-Bionanocomposites-from-Epoxidized-Hemp?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Hemp agricultural waste could become a useful raw material for advanced sustainable products rather than simply being discarded. Researchers transformed hemp waste into electrospun composite nanofibers with improved mechanical strength along with antioxidant and antibacterial properties, demonstrating a promising way to turn cannabis-industry waste into bioactive materials.

“Natural fibers have attracted increasing interest as an alternative to produce environmentally friendly and sustainable materials.

Particularly, hemp fibers have been widely used in various industrial applications due to their extremely unique properties. However, hemp can generate a large amount of agro-waste, and it results in an attractive source of biopolymers for the development of low-cost materials as an alternative to the raw materials and conventional petroleum-based plastics.

In addition, deep eutectic solvents (DESs), a new type of truly green solvents, have been shown to remove gums, lignin, and other non-cellulosic components from hemp fibers. Reusing these components dissolved into the DESs to fabricate new materials directly by electrospinning is a very attractive but still unexplored endeavor.

Thus, this innovative research to venture new upcycling pathways is focused on the fabrication of composite nanofibers by electrospinning of a gel-based blend of Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and hemp agro-waste (HW) dissolved into choline chloride (ChCl):Glycerol (1:2) and ChCl:Urea (1:2) DES mixtures.

The results obtained revealed that the produced nanofibers displayed uniform appearance with diameters ranging from 257.7 ± 65.6 nm to 380.8 ± 134.0 nm. In addition, the mechanical properties of the electrospun composite nanofibers produced from the gel-based blends of HW dissolved in DESs and PVA (HW-DESs_PVA) were found to be superior, resulting in an enhanced tensile strength and Young’s modulus.

Furthermore, the incorporation of HW into the nanofibers was able to provide bioactive antioxidant and antibacterial properties.

Overall, this study demonstrated a promising, more sustainable, and eco-friendly way to produce electrospun composite nanofibers using HW in a circular economy perspective.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38275839

https://www.mdpi.com/2310-2861/10/1/1

Researchers are using fungi as biological tools to transform cannabidiol (CBD) into new chemical derivatives that may have different properties from the original cannabinoid. In this study, selected filamentous fungi converted CBD into several more polar metabolites, expanding the range of cannabinoid compounds that could be explored for future pharmaceutical and biomedical applications.

“Cannabidiol (CBD) is a bioactive phytocannabinoid with considerable pharmacological potential. However, its limited aqueous solubility and high lipophilicity remain significant barriers to its broader pharmaceutical application.

In this study, the enzymatic potential of selected filamentous fungi was investigated as a whole-cell biocatalytic platform for the regioselective functionalization of CBD.

Sixteen fungal strains were screened, and thirteen microorganisms successfully transformed CBD into more polar derivatives. Four strains showing distinct and promising chromatographic profiles were selected for scale-up biotransformation and product isolation: Mucor hiemalis KCh W2, M. hiemalis AM 450, Isaria fumosorosea KCh J2, and Metarhizium robertsii MU4. Eight CBD derivatives were isolated and identified by UHPLC-DAD, NMR spectroscopy, and HRESI-MS, including hydroxylated, glycosylated, and methylglycosylated products.

Among them, two metabolites, 2′-O-(4‴-O-methyl-β-D-glucopyranosyl)-cannabidiol and 2′-O-(4‴-O-methyl-β-D-glucopyranosyl)-5″-hydroxycannabidiol, are reported here as previously undescribed CBD derivatives. 

I. fumosorosea KCh J2 and M. robertsii MU4 demonstrated the ability to catalyse 4-O-methylglycosylation. An additional experiment using 2′-O-(β-D-glucopyranosyl)-cannabidiol as an intermediate supported a sequential pathway involving initial phenolic O-glycosylation followed by methylation of the sugar moiety. In silico analysis predicted reduced lipophilicity for the newly obtained derivatives compared with CBD; however, these computational results require experimental verification and should not be interpreted as evidence of improved aqueous solubility, bioavailability, or biological activity.

These findings demonstrate that filamentous fungi are useful whole-cell biocatalysts for generating structurally diverse CBD derivatives with increased polarity and provide new compounds for future physicochemical and biological evaluation.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42589536

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/27/15/6884

Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease with limited treatment options, increasing drug resistance, and significant treatment-related toxicity. In this computational study, researchers screened natural compounds against an enzyme essential to parasite survival and found that cannabinol (CBN) was among the compounds showing favorable binding, supporting further investigation of cannabis-derived molecules in anti-leishmanial drug discovery.

“Leishmaniasis remains a major neglected tropical disease with limited therapeutic options, increasing drug resistance, and significant treatment-associated toxicity. Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), which plays an essential role in polyamine synthesis and survival of parasites, is a potential molecular target for the discovery of anti-leishmanial agents.

In this study, 49 natural products with bioactive properties, such as cannabinoids, terpenoids, flavonoids, polyphenols, and alkaloids, are evaluated against ODC using computational approaches like molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

During molecular docking analysis, some compounds showed good affinity binding to the ODC catalytic site, namely Sanguinarine (-8.53 kcal/mol), Rutin (-8.15 kcal/mol), Evodiamine (-7.83 kcal/mol), Cannabinol (-7.58 kcal/mol), and β-sitosterol (-7.56 kcal/mol). Analysis of protein-ligand complex interactions showed that these compounds formed hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions, π-alkyl contacts, π-cation contacts, and van der Waals forces in the vicinity of the active-site amino acid residue. For further analysis, MD simulations were performed for 100 ns on the best-docking complexes. Comparative trajectory analysis of RMSD, RMSF, Rg, SASA, and hydrogen bonds was conducted, revealing that Rutin and Evodiamine exhibited relatively high structural stability and consistent interactions within the ODC binding cavity.

Overall, this study indicates that the natural compounds analyzed here could be considered promising hit compounds for anti-leishmanial drug discovery against ODC. However, further investigations using experimental techniques are required to confirm their biological properties and efficacy.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42589139

“Leishmaniasis is considered a neglected tropical disease due to limited treatment options, increasing resistance to prioritized compounds, and high toxicity associated with treatment, necessitating the exploration of new potential treatment approaches with improved safety profiles.

In this research, computational tools were used to evaluate the efficacy of certain natural bioactive compounds on Ornithine Decarboxylase, which is a key enzyme involved in parasite viability. Molecular docking found several compounds, including Sanguinarine, Rutin, Evodiamine, Cannabinol, and β-sitosterol, with good binding energy and interaction patterns. Further, molecular dynamics studies showed that Rutin and Evodiamine had relatively stable interactions with the protein target.

Overall, the current findings suggest that selected natural compounds could serve as potential candidates for prioritized compound development in the treatment of leishmaniasis.”

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/15/15/1272