Abstract
In recent years, almost all extraction processes in the perfume, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, food ingredients, nutraceuticals, biofuel and fine chemical industries rely massively on solvents, the majority of which have petroleum origins. The intricate processing steps involved in the industrial extraction cycle makes it increasingly difficult to predict the overall environmental impact; despite the tremendous energy consumption and the substantial usage of solvents, often the yields are indicated in decimals. The ideal alternative solvents suitable for green extraction should have high solvency, high flash points with low toxicity and low environmental impacts, be easily biodegradable, obtained from renewable (non-petrochemical) resources at a reasonable price and should be easy to recycle without any deleterious effect to the environment. Finding the perfect solvent that meets all the aforementioned requirements is a challenging task, thus the decision for the optimum solvent will always be a compromise depending on the process, the plant and the target molecules. The objective of this comprehensive review is to furnish a vivid picture of current knowledge on alternative, green solvents used in laboratories and industries alike for the extraction of natural products focusing on original methods, innovation, protocols, and development of safe products.
Highlights
In recent years, almost all extraction processes in the perfume, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, food ingredients, nutraceuticals, biofuel and fine chemical industries rely massively on solvents, the majority of which have petroleum origins
This review articulates the current knowledge on alternative, green solvents used in laboratories and industries alike for the extraction of natural products focusing on original methods, innovation, protocols, and development of safe products
This review aims to be a complete perspective but will not systematically address the following topics, which were pertinently covered by recent or well-established reviews:
Summary
“What you see is what you extract”, with this sentence Choi and Verpoorte [1] pointed that solvent extraction is one of the most important steps in sample preparation for phytochemical analysis but we can generalize to industrial production via extraction of aromas, colors, antioxidants, fat and oils and fine chemicals for food, cosmetic, perfumery, and pharmaceutical industries. Extraction solvents are principally volatile organic compounds obtained from non-renewable resources, mainly petroleum-based, and suspected to be harmful to both human health and the environment. One such voluminously used solvent is n-hexane, a product of controlled fractional distillation from petroleum mixtures. 2 substance under the European Directives and Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations. Molecules 2019, 24, 3007 and the development of green chemistry, finding alternative solvents to petroleum-derived solvents has become a major concern for chemists [2]. This review articulates the current knowledge on alternative, green solvents used in laboratories and industries alike for the extraction of natural products focusing on original methods, innovation, protocols, and development of safe products. Life Cycle Analysis of petroleum versus green and alternative solvents [2]
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