Extraction of sweeteners from Stevia rebaudiana by semicontinuous percolation of untreated leaves and leaves pretreated with ethanol

Abstract

Stevia rebaudiana is a shrub of the Asteraceae family, native to South America. Sweeteners called steviol glycosides are extracted from the leaves of this plant, which have a sweetening power that can be up to 450 times greater than the sweetening power of sucrose (Das et al., 2015). Among the glycosides found in Stevia are stevioside, steviolbioside, rebaudiosides A, B, C, D, E, F and dulcoside (Ahmed & Mukta, 2017), being rebaudioside A, among the major glycosides, the one with the best sensory profile. NEPRON, the Nucleus of Research in Natural Products at the State University of Maringá, obtained an elite plant named Stevia UEM-13 that has rebaudioside A as its main glycoside (Milani et al., 2017).

Cold extraction of minimally processed Stevia UEM‐13 leaves: Amylase inhibition and increased bioaccessibility of bioactive compounds by microencapsulation

“…However, data from our research group, using the same variety of pre‐treated Stevia UEM‐13, show conventional aqueous extractions at high temperatures with yields around 40% (Formigoni et al, 2018) and yield of 41% with ultrasound‐assisted extraction (Raspe et al, 2021). Ciotta et al (2022), using the same semi‐continuous percolation extraction process, showed a yield of 41% using boiling water. Data that corroborate with the result found in this study.…”

“…The FE presented 7.3% TPC and 25.3% sweeteners, being 10.2% stevioside, 11.9% rebaudioside A, and 3.2% rebaudioside C. The ME had 4.0% phenolic compounds and 8.1% total sweeteners, being 3.5% stevioside, 3.5% rebaudioside A, and 1.2% rebaudioside C. Raspe et al (2021) obtained 26 g/100 g of total sweeteners in the aqueous extract obtained by ultrasound‐assisted extraction. Ciotta et al (2022), using semi‐continuous extraction (100°C) of pre‐treated UEM‐13 leaves, obtained in the aqueous extract 31.56 g/100 of total glycosides.…”

“…The leaves (40 g) were extracted by percolation with 1600 ml of deionized water at 5°C for three times, according to Ciotta et al (2022) with modifications.…”