Total phenolic content and anti-oxidant potential of Ficus deltoidea using green and non-green solvents

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to determine the total phenolic content (TPC) and anti-oxidant activity of green and non-green solvent extracts. Solvents have an important role in chemical or pharmaceutical industry. The usage of non-green solvent may cause detrimental effects on human safety and health. Therefore, green solvents are encouraged to be utilized because they are environmental friendly and easily acquired during the agricultural crops processing. For this study, the green solvent used in the extraction of Ficus deltoidea's leaves was water whereas non-green solvents used were ethanol and methanol. Folin-Ciocalteu method was used for measuring the presence and amount of phenolic content in each of the sample. The results showed that aqueous extract had the highest TPC (368.42 ± 6.37 mg GAE/g), followed by methanolic (295.03 ± 16.65 mg GAE/g) and ethanolic (263.45 ± 5.28 mg GAE/g) extracts. Furthermore, 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay was used in determining the anti-oxidant activity of the extracts. The lowest IC50 value based on the graph of percentage inhibition against concentration of sample was shown by ethanolic extract (16.5 µg/mL), followed by methanolic extract (22.0 µg/mL), and aqueous extract (23.5 µg/mL). For the three samples, the correlations between TPC and IC50 were negative and weak. Hence, the anti-oxidant activity of an extract cannot be predicted based on its TPC. The present study has shown that F. deltoidea considerably has the potential as a source of natural anti-oxidants.