Selective extraction of bioactive compounds from plants using recent extraction techniques: A review

doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2020.461770

Journal of Chromatography A

Volume 1635, 4 January 2021, 461770

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2020.461770 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Solvents properties and solubility models.
•
Selectivity in extraction of natural compounds from plants.
•
Specificity of microwave, ultrasonic assisted and pressurized liquid extraction.
•
Solubility of compounds in supercritical fluids.
•
Extraction modes and sequential extraction for supercritical fluid extraction.

Abstract

Plant extraction has existed for a long time and is still of interest. Due to technological improvements, it is now possible to obtain extracts with higher yields. While global yield is a major parameter because it assesses the extraction performance, it can be of interest to focus on the extraction of particular compounds (specific metabolites) to enrich the sample and to avoid the extraction of unwanted ones, for instance the primary metabolites (carbohydrates, triacylglycerols). The objective then is to improve extraction selectivity is then considered.

In solid-liquid extraction, which is often called maceration, the solvent has a major impact on selectivity. Its polarity has a direct influence on the solutes extracted, related to the chemical structure of the compounds, and modelling compound/solvent interactions by using various polarity or interaction scales is a great challenge to favor the choice of the appropriate extracting liquid.

Technical advances have allowed the development of recent, and sometimes green, extraction techniques, such as Microwave-Assisted Extraction (MAE), Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction (UAE), Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE) and Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE). This review focuses on the specificity of these recent techniques and the influence of their physical parameters (i.e. pressure, intensity, etc.). In addition to the solvent selection, which is of prime interest, the physical parameters applied by the different techniques influence the extraction results in different ways. Besides, SFE is a versatile and green technique suitable to achieve selectivity for some compounds. Due to its properties, SC-CO₂ allows tailoring conditions to improve the selectivity.

Introduction

Primary and secondary metabolites can be extracted from plants by different techniques. For non-volatile compounds, the oldest technique is simply to bring the plant into contact with a solvent (water, alcohol, oil...). This technique is called solid-liquid extraction, or more commonly maceration. For several years now, so-called "modern" extraction techniques have been developed. The enhancement of performance comes from the use of “assisted” technology (i.e. ultrasonic waves, pressure, microwaves) which may reduce the duration of the process and induce energy and solvent saving through various intensification mechanisms. This physical treatment can also impact the extraction mechanism, possibly increasing extraction yields and causing different extraction selectivities compared to simple maceration.

To determine the best operating parameters, process optimization is frequently based on the global yield. However, in some cases, it is necessary to extract one family or one compound over another. Selectivity is then considered to find the best conditions. It can be used to enrich an extract with target compounds [1], or to avoid unwanted compounds such as pollutants [2], [3], [4], [5]. In the latter case, purity is the optimized parameter.

The aim of this review is to investigate the different parameters that can induce extraction selectivity in numerous extraction methods.

First, the nature of the solvent is investigated as the right choice of solvent can by itself induce selectivity. In a second part, the review focuses on different techniques and their respective parameters to examine their role in selective extraction. Three extraction methods are described: Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction (UAE), Microwave-Assisted Extraction (MAE) and Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE). For example, the impact of frequency and power on selectivity is studied for UAE, pressure for PLE and so on. In the last part, the use of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂) in Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) is detailed. This fluid is well known for its selectivity properties. For this reason, this extraction method will be dealt with at greater length than the other three. Carbon dioxide modulation is studied and other parameters such as the use of separators or extraction vessel geometry are presented.

Section snippets

Solubility models

Whatever the extraction method used, the chemical nature of the extraction solvent is of primary importance to favor the compound solubility, i.e. the extraction recovery and the extraction selectivity.

The knowledge of these chemical properties, which are the basis of the interactions developed between the solvent and the compounds, guides the selection of an adequate solvent, to maximize the yield or purity of the target molecules. Various scales of solvent and compound chemical properties can

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE)

Supercritical fluid extraction has been widely studied and is usually considered a green extraction technique [76,77] owing to the use of a green and renewable solvent: carbon dioxide. While other fluids can be used in plant extraction (such as propane), CO₂ has more advantages such as non-toxicity and thermodynamic parameters, which facilitate its use in the supercritical state (above 31.1°C and 7.4 MPa). This review will thus focus on supercritical extraction using carbon dioxide.

Fig. 6

Conclusion

This review has surveyed the key points that need to be considered in order to modify selectivity during the extraction of bioactive compounds from plants. In particular, it has highlighted the importance of the chemical nature of the solvent, and of the physicochemical properties of the different techniques: wave modulation using UAE, microwave irradiation power using MAE, pressure with PLE and finally pressure, temperature and modifier addition for supercritical extraction using carbon

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Thibault Lefebvre: Writing - original draft. Emilie Destandau: Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Eric Lesellier: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Centre-Val de Loire region, which provided the funding of the “Khloros” APR-IR (2017).

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Review articleSelective extraction of bioactive compounds from plants using recent extraction techniques: A review

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Solubility models

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE)

Conclusion

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgements

J. Food Eng.

Analytica Chimica Acta: X

J. Supercritical Fluids

J. Chromatogr. A

C. R. Chim.

J. Supercritical Fluids

J. Supercritical Fluids

Ind. Crops Prod.

Food Chem.

LWT–Food Sci. Technol.

Eur. J. Pharm. Biopharm.

LWT–Food Sci. Technol.

LWT–Food Sci. Technol.

Food Chem.

Talanta

C. R. Chim.

J. Supercritical Fluids

C. R. Chim.

Ind. Crops Prod.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Food Chem.

Molecules

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Ind. Crops Prod.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Ind. Crops Prod.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Ind. Crops Prod.

Carbohydr. Polym.

Food Chem.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Ultrason. Sonochem.

Ind. Crops Prod.

J. Chromatogr. A

Ind. Crops Prod.

Food Chem.

Ind. Crops Prod.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

J. Food Eng.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Food Chem.

Review article
Selective extraction of bioactive compounds from plants using recent extraction techniques: A review