Brazilian Ginseng Roots Research Articles

Effects of supercritical carbon dioxide on the physicochemical properties of apple juice enriched with Brazilian ginseng roots extract

The development of non-thermal treatments associated to the formulation of functional products have been a challenge for the food industry. In this sense, the enrichment of apple juice with aqueous extract of Brazilian ginseng (Pfaffia glomerata) followed by the processing of the beverage using supercritical carbon dioxide (SCD) was proposed. The functional beverage was characterized with respect to pH, soluble solids content (SSC), particle size distribution, zeta potential (ZP) and color analysis.

Obtaining functional powder tea from Brazilian ginseng roots: Effects of freeze and spray drying processes on chemical and nutritional quality, morphological and redispersion properties

In this work, the aqueous extract obtained from Brazilian ginseng (Pfaffia glomerata) roots (BGR), rich in beta-ecdysone and fructooligosaccharides (FOS), was powdered by spray drying and freeze drying techniques aiming to obtain a novel functional food product. The effects of these drying techniques on the chemical and nutritional quality, morphological and redispersion properties of the BGR powders were evaluated. The BGR powders obtained by both spray drying and freeze drying techniques maintained their beta-ecdysone and FOS contents after drying, demonstrating the stability of these functional compounds. It was found that the wettability of the powders obtained by different treatments was affected by the drying technique because freeze-dried particles reached the lower values (66 ± 5 s) while spray-dried particles showed a greater time for dispersion into water (150 ± 25 s). This behavior was mainly associated with differences between powder morphological properties since the freeze-dried particles presented a more porous structure, resulting in a greater water diffusivity into microstructure during the redispersion process. Drying process did not affect the storage stability of powders because the glass transition temperature (Tg) for both samples was approximately 160 °C at a relative humidity of 56%. Thus, both BGR powders presented adequate redispersion properties to constitute a new functional tea or even to be used as a functional ingredient in food products.

Multi-objective Optimization of Supercritical Water Gasification of Leftover Brazilian Ginseng Roots After Phytochemical Recovery Steps

Abstract The present study aims at studying the supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of leftover Brazilian ginseng roots after phytochemicals extraction for synthetic natural gas (SNG) production, envisioning the development of a promising Brazilian ginseng roots valorization using sub/supercritical fluids in different steps. A multi-objective energetic-economic-environmental optimization of the proposed SCWG process was assessed through the use of computational simulation tools. The results showed that, for a given leftover biomass input of 20MW, a specific cost of 62-66 USD/MWh of SNG is obtained, which is higher than the average price on the Brazilian market. On the other hand, the production process of SNG from this residue showed to be a promising option, being energetically self-sufficient and environmentally friendly. In order for this alternative process to become more economically attractive we proposed the construction of the SCWG and the sub/supercritical extraction units in the same location, sharing part of the same high-pressure equipment.

Obtaining prebiotic carbohydrates and beta-ecdysone from Brazilian ginseng by subcritical water extraction

Abstract Subcritical water extraction (SWE) is one of the most promising modern extraction techniques for isolation of bioactive compounds from plant materials. Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and beta-ecdysone were obtained from Brazilian ginseng roots (BGR) and aerial parts (BGA) by SWE aiming to use the entire plant in a biorefinery approach. The BGR extracts showed a FOS content of up to 8.8 g/100 g of extract and a beta-ecdysone content of up to 0.7 g/100 g of extract. BGA extracts showed a beta-ecdysone content of 0.3 g/100 g of extract. An economic evaluation showed that the manufacturing of BGR for beta-ecdysone production had a good profitability with a short payback time of 1.43 years, while BGA could be used as fuel to supply the energetic requirements of the process and then, enable the utilization of the entire plant. Industrial relevance This study reports the subcritical water extraction (SWE) of fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and beta-ecdysone from Brazilian ginseng roots (BGR) and aerial parts (BGA) aiming the use of the entire plant material in a biorefinery approach. SWE is a promising innovative technology to recover bioactive compounds from plant materials due to the easy manipulation of the dielectric constant of water. The economic evaluation of the process showed the great profitability of SWE to obtain bioactive compounds from Brazilian ginseng. These results demonstrated that SWE is a green, fast and economic process for extracting bioactive compounds from plant materials and can be successfully applied on industrial scale.

Perspectives on the integration of a supercritical fluid extraction plant to a sugarcane biorefinery: thermo-economical evaluation of CO2 recycle systems

Abstract In the present study, the software Aspen Plus® was used to analyse two different systems for CO2 recycle in a SFE process for extraction of more polar compounds using ethanol as co-solvent, the most common co-solvent used due to its environment-friendly nature. The extraction process of β-ecdysone from Brazilian ginseng roots was considered as example in the computational simulations. The first CO2 recycle system, named Recycle A, considered the compression of the CO2 separated in the second flash to the recycle pressure assumed at the first flash tank, its cooling to 25 °C and recirculation, while the second recycle system, named Recycle B, considered the cooling and pumping of the CO2 separated in the second flash, its heating to 25 °C and recirculation. The best techno-economic condition to operate the recycling step would be using Recycle A at 40 bar and 30 °C considering a stand-alone SFE process; and using Recycle B at 40 bar and 40 °C, considering this process in close proximity of a hypothetical sugarcane biorefinery. Therefore, these results suggest that the selection where would be located the SFE plant should be taken into account during the first steps of the process design.

Techno-economic evaluation of obtaining Brazilian ginseng extracts in potential production scenarios

Brazilian ginseng extracts are considered as functional ingredients to promote health benefits due to its bioactive properties. The present study aims at studying a two-step intensified extraction process that operates at ambient pressure in order to recover Brazilian ginseng roots bioactive compounds. The intensified process consists in a sequential extraction system using ethanol followed by water, envisioning the improvement of the overall extraction yield of the process to make it feasible. A technical-economic analysis of the proposed process was assessed through the use of computational simulation tools. The intensified process was compared to a simple extraction process using only ethanol or water as extracting solvents. The results showed that the lowest payback time for the investment is achieved not by minimizing process cost but at maximizing beta-ecdysone production. Economic performance indicators of income statement and profitability ratios showed that, even with higher investment cost, the intensified process presented higher economic attractiveness than the single step extraction processes using ethanol or water.

Proposal for fractionating Brazilian ginseng extracts: Process intensification approach

Brazilian ginseng (Pfaffia glomerata) roots contain several bioactive compounds, including beta-ecdysone with several therapeutic effects, saponins with surface activity and fructooligosaccharides (FOS) with prebiotic effects. Regarding this rich composition, a two-step intensified extraction process that uses the same solid-liquid extraction apparatus was developed to obtain and fractionate the bioactive compounds from Brazilian ginseng roots using ethanol and water as the extraction solvents. The intensified process was compared to a conventional extraction process using water as the solvent. The beta-ecdysone and saponins were mainly concentrated in the ethanolic extract obtained in step 1 of the intensified extraction process, while the FOS was isolated in the aqueous extract obtained in step 2. The effect of pressure (0.1, 5 and 10 MPa) on the extraction yield, beta-ecdysone content, saponin content, water surface tension reduction rate and FOS content was evaluated using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical method. The highest beta-ecdysone content (5.6%, d.b.) was obtained at ambient pressure (0.1 MPa), while the highest saponin content (55%, d.b.) was obtained at 5 MPa. However, the extracts that had better surface activity were also obtained at ambient pressure. The total FOS content obtained at ambient pressure was 7.9% (d.b.). The kinetic study showed that suitable process times for the first and second steps were 38 and 110 min, respectively.

Economical Analysis of a Pressurized Fluid-Based Process Applied for Phytochemicals Recovery in a Sustainable Biorefinery Concept for Brazilian Ginseng Roots

A growing number of technologies are being developed in order to produce different high added value products, such as phytochemicals, ethanol and other chemicals from biomass, representing an important trend that needs to be evaluated. The use of pressurized-fluid technologies to obtain phytochemicals from certain biomasses has shown encouraging results in terms of selectivity, enabling its use prior bioenergy generation since generally only a small part of the solid material is extracted. The phytochemical compound which is most financially interesting to extract from the Brazilian Ginseng (Pfaffia glomerata) roots is ecdysterone (beta-ecdysone), an ecdysteroid. Ecdysteroids are a class of natural steroids acting as hormones and beta-ecdysone is the most important steroid employed in cosmetic formulations. It is also used in other industries such as the food and pharmaceutical industry. Due to its health properties, large amounts of Pfaffia glomerata roots are being exported from Brazil to countries that use phytochemical therapies widely. This work is part of a project that aims to present a solution to perform phytochemicals recovery step in Brazil envisioning decentralized local-scale production. In this study, first the influence of the extraction temperature (353-413 K) and static extraction time (5-15 min) using pressurized ethyl acetate as extracting solvent on the beta-ecdysone recovery was experimentally evaluated and compared with literature results employing other pressurized fluids. Afterwards, an economical analysis was done for comparison using ASPEN PLUS software and OSMOSE platform. It was observed that the relationship of the beta-ecdysone recovery, extraction temperature and static extraction time was linear. An increase in temperature and static time resulted in enhancement of the beta-ecdysone recovery from the biomass. On the other hand, the increase of the extraction temperature beyond 373 K possibly might enhance the degradation of the beta-ecdysone extracted decreasing its relative amount in the extract. Since for the economical analysis performed the former response variable (beta-ecdysone recovery) is most important than the latter, it was calculated the net present value of this process considering high extraction temperatures. Considering an installation time of two years, a lifetime of 25 years and an interest rate of 15 % the obtained net present value for the different pressurized extracting solvents were in the following order: ethyl acetate > ethanol > CO2-ethanol mixture. The results demonstrate that the inclusion of a pressurized fluid-based process using ethyl acetate or ethanol for beta-ecdysone recovery prior further bioenergy production is very promising.

Obtaining annatto seed oil miniemulsions by ultrasonication using aqueous extract from Brazilian ginseng roots as a biosurfactant

The purpose of this study was to produce an oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion of δ-tocotrienol-rich oil obtained from annatto seeds by a supercritical fluid extraction process. The effects of emulsification by ultrasound (US) were evaluated and compared to emulsification by dispax reactor (DR) at similar energy densities. Saponin-rich extract from Brazilian ginseng roots (BGR) was obtained from BGR by pressurized liquid extraction and used as a biosurfactant. A model O/W emulsion system was prepared with soybean oil and commercial saponin. The influence of the emulsification process, energy density, oil type, biosurfactant type and biosurfactant concentration on the size and stability of the resulting droplets was examined through the experimental design and proper statistical analysis. The results showed that US produced more stable emulsion with smaller droplet sizes in comparison with the DR device at the same energy density. In general, increasing the energy density helped to reduce the emulsion droplet size. The minimum average droplet size observed in the mini-emulsions was 0.35μm. The data show that both biosurfactants were capable of forming emulsions containing relatively small droplets (<0.83μm) and were rather stable (96–99%), with some creaming. The emulsion droplets also showed a surface potential of approximately −49mV because of the adsorbed biosurfactants, which minimized the flocculation of the oil droplets. These results indicate that BGR-extracted saponin might be an attractive biosurfactant choice for emulsion formulations for use in food and beverage products.

Production of Biosurfactant from Brazilian Ginseng Roots by Low- Pressure Solvent Extraction with and Without the Assistance of Ultrasound

Production of Biosurfactant from Brazilian Ginseng Roots by Low- Pressure Solvent Extraction with and Without the Assistance of Ultrasound

New proposal for production of bioactive compounds by supercritical technology integrated to a sugarcane biorefinery

The construction of a supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) plant inside or in close proximity to a sugarcane biorefinery producing first and second generation ethanol demonstrated to be very promising, increasing the economic potential of the SFE process in up to 57 %, since the SFE plant could use directly the ethanol, CO2, heat, and electricity already available, with lower prices. In this study, Brazilian ginseng roots were used as model bioactive compounds source and first the statistical influence of the extraction conditions including pressure (10–20 MPa), temperature (323–363 K), and CO2/ethanol proportion ratio (90:10, 50:50, and 0:100 %, w/w) on the β-ecdysone content in the extracts was experimentally evaluated and compared with literature results. SFE process evaluated experimentally at the present study showed higher selective extraction for β-ecdysone from Brazilian ginseng roots, providing an extract with up to 2.16 times higher β-ecdysone than the results obtained in previous studies. Thermal integration of the SFE process diminished energy requirements of the process, resulting in a reduction of cold utility requirement of 87 % and a final electricity demand of 7.5 kWh/g of β-ecdysone in the extract. In a situation in which the Brazilian ginseng roots price was increased to 4.71 USD/g, only the SFE integrated with the biorefinery solution would be economically feasible. Finally, the selling of the ginseng roots leftover could be an interesting answer to increase the economical attractiveness of the integrated SFE process to the biorefinery.

Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Beta-ecdysone from Brazilian Ginseng (Pfaffia glomerata) Roots

Ecdysteroids have been found in a variety of plants and have several valuable biological properties. Beta-ecdysone is the major biologically active ecdysteroid that can be isolated from Pfaffia glomerata roots. Pfaffia glomerata is a medicinal plant known in Brazil as ginseng, and this plant has been used as a substitute for Asian ginseng due their similar morphologies and bioactive properties. In this work, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) using carbon dioxide (CO2) was used to obtain beta-ecdysone-rich extracts from Brazilian ginseng roots. The effects of pressure (20 and 30 MPa) and cosolvent amount (10, 15, 75 and 90% of Ethanol, EtOH) on the behavior of the overall extraction curve (OEC) and beta-ecdysone content were studied. Larger amounts of beta-ecdysone were obtained in shorter processing times using CO2: EtOH (85:15, v/v) as the extracting solvent at 20 MPa. Higher amounts of EtOH in the solvent mixture leads to increased extraction yield as well as increased beta-ecdysone content.

Simulation Of An Integrated Sustainable Production Of Extract From Brazilian Ginseng Roots With A Cogeneration Plant

Simulation Of An Integrated Sustainable Production Of Extract From Brazilian Ginseng Roots With A Cogeneration Plant

Free radical scavenging activity of Pfaffia glomerata (Spreng.) Pederson (Amaranthaceae)

<b>OBJECTIVE</b> : To evaluate the free radical scavenging and cytotoxic activities of the butanolic (BuOH) extract, methanolic (MeOH) extract and 20-hydroxyecdysone extracted from the roots of <i> Pfaffia glomerata</i> .<br><b> MATERIALS AND METHODS</b> : <i> Pfaffia glomerata</i> roots were collected, powdered and extracted with methanol by maceration at room temperature. The extract was concentrated under vacuum, yielding a residue, followed by a butanol extraction. The 20-hydroxyecdysone (EC) was obtained by chromatographic separation of the BuOH fraction. An amount of 10 mg of each dry extract and EC was dissolved in 0.1% dimethyl sulphoxide-phosphate-buffered-saline solution (DMSO-PBS) and screened for their capabilities on scavenging thiobarbiturate reactive substances (TBARS). The antioxidant activity of each extract was determined <i> in vitro</i> by measuring malonyldialdehyde (MDA) and 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) in erythrocyte ghosts treated with ferric-ascorbate. The investigation has also included the cytotoxicity measurement by Trypan blue exclusion test and tetrazolium reduction assay in mice peritoneal macrophages.<br><b> RESULTS</b> : The free radical scavenging activity of EC was higher than that present in the BuOH fraction. The MeOH extract showed a remarkable pro-oxidant activity. The EC-free radical reaction-inhibition was almost twice of that of the control a-Tocopherol (aT). The Trypan blue exclusion assay confirmed toxicity of the MeOH extract, whose lethality surpassed 80% of the treated macrophages after 1 h of 0.01 mg exposure per 106 cells.<br><b> CONCLUSIONS</b> : The present study shows the antioxidant effect of the Brazilian Ginseng. The scavenging effect was evidenced for EC as well the BuOH fraction. The MeOH extract showed cytotoxicity on mice peritoneal macrophages. Such toxicity is probably due to ginsenosides present in this latter fraction and warrants further toxicological evaluation of the Brazilian Ginseng roots.<br>