Abstract
The food industry has currently shown great interest in alternative sweeteners to sugars with the aim of producing healthier products. In light of this, steviol glycosides are natural low-caloric sweeteners present in Stevia rebaudiana, which have additionally been described as bioactive components with potential therapeutic properties. In this work, a green method for the extraction of steviol glycosides from stevia leaves was optimized by applying a factorial screening design of five variables (time, temperature, agitation, grinding, and sample–solvent ratio) and the subsequent response surface design of Box-Behnken. The optimized extraction method allows for the recovery of stevia sweeteners in a simple and efficient manner by using tap water as the extractant, without the application of an auxiliary energy source to reduce costs, thus representing an interesting strategy for their industrial-scale production.
Highlights
The food industry has currently shown great interest in the use of low-caloric sweeteners instead of sugars and derivatives because of the consumer awareness with respect to their implication in the pathogenesis of diseases such as obesity and diabetes
Tap water was employed as the extracting solvent, followed by membrane filtration for preparing steviol glycoside-rich extracts, which is perfectly compatible with the principles of green chemistry
Five extraction factors were investigated with the aim of maximizing the extraction efficiency of steviol glycosides from stevia leaves including the total extraction time, temperature, and agitation applied during extraction as well as the state of leaves grinding and sample-to-solvent ratio
Summary
The food industry has currently shown great interest in the use of low-caloric sweeteners instead of sugars and derivatives because of the consumer awareness with respect to their implication in the pathogenesis of diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Stevia produces various glycosides derived from steviol (13-hydroxy-ent-kaur-16-en-19-oic acid), a diterpenic compound mainly found in leaves [2]. Among these steviol glycosides, called steviosides, stevioside, and rebaudioside A, are the two most abundant and sweetest species (almost times sweeter than sucrose), which account for 5–10% and 2–4% of the total weight of dry leaves, respectively. Other minor steviol glycosides present in stevia leaves in lower concentrations are dulcoside A, steviolbioside, and rebaudiosides B-F [3] In addition to their non-caloric sweetening properties, some studies have shown that steviol glycosides, principally stevioside, could have therapeutic properties including
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