The green and efficient
extraction of bioactive compounds from
plant biomass is an important area of interest in the pharmaceutical
industries. Hydrophilic deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been considered
as green alternatives to conventional solvents for bioactive compound
extraction. In this study, we aimed to provide a practical example
demonstrating the tunability of hydrophobic DESs as designer solvents
to efficiently extract bioactive compounds from plant biomass. Artemisinin,
known as the only drug effective in the treatment of malaria, was
chosen for extraction from Artemisia annua leaves. A hydrophobic DES named N81Cl-NBA that was tailor-made from
methyl trioctyl ammonium chloride and 1-butanol at a molar ratio of
1:4 showed the highest extraction yield. With N81Cl-NBA-based ultrasound-assisted
extraction (UAE), the main factors affecting the extraction yield
were statistically optimized using a central composite design combined
with a response surface methodology. The optimal conditions were obtained
as follows: solvent/solid ratio 17.5:1, ultrasonic power 180 W, temperature
45 °C, particle size 80 mesh, and extraction time 70 min. Under
these conditions, an extraction yield of 7.9936 ± 0.0364 mg/g
was obtained, which was distinctly higher than that obtained using
the conventional organic solvent petroleum ether. Moreover, the recovery
of the target artemisinin from the N81Cl-NBA extraction solution was
achieved by AB-8 macroporous resin with a recovery yield of 85.65%.
N81Cl-NBA could be reused at least two times without a significant
decrease in extraction yield. This study suggests that not only hydrophilic
DESs but also hydrophobic DESs are truly designer solvents that can
be used as green and safe extraction solvents for pharmaceutical applications.
This paper presents a prefermentation treatment method involving fungi to improve flavonoid extraction from the leaves of Ginkgo biloba . The fungi employed for this treatment were screened from the soil present under an ancient ginkgo tree. Seventy-six strains belonging to 23 genera were isolated and identified by a molecular identification method employing 18S rDNA sequences. Thirty-three strains grew well using ginkgo leaves as the growth medium. One strain, Gyx086, with higher extracted yield of flavonoids and more similar to the control, was finally selected for prefermentation processing. The major fermentation factors were optimized by response surface methodology. The optimal conditions for the highest total falvonoid yield were 27.8 °C for temperature, 64.2% for moisture content, and 61 h for fermentation time. Under the optimal condition, a actual total flavonoid yield of 27.59 ± 0.52 mg/g dry weight culture sample was obtained, which was about 70% higher than that of unfermented gingko leaf samples.
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