Extraction of Neutraceuticals from Plants by Microwave Assisted Extraction

Abstract

Ashwani Kumar Chaturvedi*

Several naturally derived food substances have now moved from territory of traditional and folklore medicines to rigorous studies aimed at identi-fying natural preventive therapies for disease. During chemical treatment bioactive substance can also be modified with possible negative impacts. Therefore safe and reliable extraction procedure should be improved and assessed. Because of growing interest in the extraction of bioactive com-pounds and nutraceuticals from plants and herbs and the search for sus-tainable extraction technique, MAE is fast realizing its promise as a tech-nique that can respond to the rigorous demands this field necessitates. The traditional techniques of solvent extraction of plant materials require long extraction time and have low efficiency. Moreover, many natural prod-ucts are thermally unstable and may degrade during thermal extraction. There are several novel techniques including ultrasound assisted extrac-tion, microwave assisted extraction, supercritical fluid extraction and accel-erated solvent extraction have been developed for the extraction of phyto-constituents from plants in order to shorten the extraction time, decrease the solvent consumption, increase the extraction yield and enhance the quality of extracts. MAE has risen rapidly in the latest decade, and for most applications it has proven to be effective compared to traditional extraction techniques. The studies reported prove many advantages that make MAE an excellent substitute to traditional methods such as soxhlet and solid liquid extraction, as well as other environmentally benign technologies. Results also depicted that MAE coupled with high speed counter current chromatography is highly suitable technique for extraction, separation and purification.