Comparison of Antioxidant Activity in Extracts of Myrtus communis L. Obtained by SFE vs. Solvent Extraction

2012

This paper reports results of a study on a shrub typical of the Portuguese flora, Myrtus communis L., commonly known as myrtle. This plant is described in the literature as an antioxidant (AO) source for nutraceutical purposes. We are interested in assessing its antioxidant capacity (AOC) and to that end we are using the supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) technique to obtain the plant extracts to study the performance of this technique against the more conventional extraction techniques, namely hydrodistillation followed by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-liquid extraction (SLE). Supercritical extraction studies were performed using carbon dioxide as the supercritical fluid at different experimental conditions. Cumulative extraction curves for different temperatures, 308 and 321, 333 K, and pressures 10, 15 and 30 MPa and at constant carbon dioxide flow of about 7 × 10-5 kg·s-1 are presented. The AO activity was determined by three different methods: Folin-Ciocalteu, TEAC (Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity) and ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity). The results for the extracts obtained by SFE were compared with those obtained by conventional extraction showing that SFE is effective to extract AO components from Myrtus communis L., and the use of ethanol as co-solvent, at the studied conditions, increases the values of TEAC and ORAC of about four times, when compared to values obtained when conventional extraction is used.

Authors in the community:

• 

  M

  Maria Gabriela da Silva Bernardo Gil

  ist11061

  Affiliations and sources

  IST > iBB

  Instituto de Bioengenharia e Biociências

  IST > CERENA

  Centro de Recursos Naturais e Ambiente

  IST > CEBQ

  Centro de Engenharia Biológica e Química

Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering A

115

120

1

1

chemical-engineering - Chemical engineering

eng - English