Simultaneous stone-milling and extraction enables efficient one-step extraction of hard plant materials

Abstract

Extraction of plant materials is an essential practice in various fields using natural compounds. Nevertheless, it is challenging to perform complicated extraction efficiently and consistently on materials with hard-to-crush structures. This work presents a new method called simultaneous stone-milling and extraction (SME) to achieve one-step extraction of hard materials. SME under its optimal conditions was confirmed to produce high quality extracts from whole spice seeds (anise seeds, dill seeds, fennel seeds) and coarse-cut star anise. Compared to other extraction methods like maceration, heat-assisted extraction and ultrasound-assisted extraction, SME extracts contained comparable or higher concentrations of general (polyphenols, flavonoids, antioxidants) and specific (enzyme inhibitors) bioactive groups. Hence, SME with its one-step operation is expected to simplify the task of plant extraction and contribute to the advances in studies using plant-derived phytochemicals.