Abstract
<p>The increasing demand for high-quality products and economically and environmentally friendly technologies, as well as restrictive legislative actions, has stimulated scientific research on the extraction, purification and identification of bioactive compounds from natural sources. Pomegranate (<em>Punica granatum </em>L.) is commonly used in traditional medicine due to its pharmacological properties, such as its anti-inflammatory, antihepatotoxicity, anti-lipoperoxidation, antidiabetic, anti-cancer and antimicrobial activities. The use of industrial residues as sources of bioactive compounds has emerged as an economically viable solution to the problem of solid waste treatment. In this context, this work aimed to evaluate the SC-CO<sub>2</sub> extraction of polyphenols from pomegranate leaves, evaluating the influence of temperature (40 and 50°C) and pressure (10-30 MPa) on extraction yield (EY), total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity (AA) and the cost of manufacturing (COM) of the extracts. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the dimensionality of multivariate data, making the visualization more straightforward and manageable. A high EY and TPC and low COM were obtained at the most effective operational conditions of 50°C and 30 MPa. The lack of correlation between EY-AA and TPC-AA indicated the coextraction of non-phenolic compounds. This assumption was corroborated by GC-MS analysis, which showed high levels of eicosanol, squalene, linoleic acid and tocols. Even though SC-CO<sub>2</sub> extraction resulted in a high TPC (257-389 mg.g<sup>-1</sup>) compared to the literature data, the low EY (0.21-0.67 %) and non-phenolic presence suggest that SC-CO<sub>2</sub> extraction may be a good purification pretreatment for the removal of non-polyphenolic compounds prior to further polyphenol extraction.</p>
Highlights
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), a shrub native to the Mediterranean region with a vast ethno-medical history, is extensively used in traditional medicine due to its therapeutic properties (Kaneria, Bapodara, & Chanda, 2012)
According to the Principal component analysis (PCA) results, the most effective operational condition for the supercritical CO2 extraction of phenolic compounds from pomegranate leaves was found to be at 50°C and 30 MPa; a high extraction yield and phenolic content and low cost of manufacturing (COM) were obtained under these conditions
The antioxidant activity had a negative correlation with phenolic content and extraction yield, indicating the potential co-extraction of non-polyphenolic compounds
Summary
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), a shrub native to the Mediterranean region with a vast ethno-medical history, is extensively used in traditional medicine due to its therapeutic properties (Kaneria, Bapodara, & Chanda, 2012). The major pharmacological functions attributed to pomegranate extracts include anti-LDL-cholesterol (Anoosh, Mojtaba, & Fatemeh, 2010), anti-fibrotic (Toklu et al, 2007; Toklu et al, 2009), anti-inflammatory (Lansky & Newman, 2007; Lee, Chen, Liang, & Wang, 2010), antihepatotoxicity (Kaur, Jabbar, Athar, & Alam, 2006), antilipoperoxidation (Reddy, Gupta, Jacob, Khan, & Ferreira, 2007), antidiabetic (Das & Barman, 2012; Huang et al, 2005; Sharma & Arya, 2011), anti-obesity (Al-Muammar & Khan, 2012; Lei et al, 2007), anti-cancer (Adhami & Mukhtar, 2006; Khan, Afaq, Kweon, Kim, & Mukhtar, 2007; Khan & Mukhtar, 2007; Lansky & Newman, 2007), anti-viral (Su, Sangster, & D'Souza, 2010; 2011), anti-bacterial (Nair & Chanda, 2005), and anti-fungal activities (Endo, Garcia Cortez, Ueda-Nakamura, Nakamura, & Dias Filho, 2010; Johann et al, 2008) In this context, the pomegranate leaf stands out as a polyphenol-rich source, exhibiting high levels of flavonoids and tannins, such as punicalin, pedunculagan, gallagic acid, ellagic acid, and its esters of glucose (Kaneria et al, 2012). The aim of this work was to study the use of SC-CO2 in the extraction of phenolic compounds from pomegranate leaves, evaluating the extract’s chemical composition and the manufacturing cost of the process using principal component analysis as a chemometric method for the reduction and correlation of variables
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