A comparison of the performance of conventional and eco-friendly extraction methods in the evaluation of total phenolics, antioxidant activity, and chemical composition of anise

ABSTRACT

In this work, the essential oil of Pimpinella anisum seeds was obtained by six different extraction methods. In the chemical composition analysis, 4, 6, 4, 1, 20, and 8 compounds were detected in the extracts obtained by Soxhlet, Ultrasonic-assisted (UAE), hydrodistillation using Clevenger apparatus (HDC), subcritical water extraction (SWE), supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (ScCO₂) using three solvents (methanol (ScCO₂-Met), ethanol (ScCO₂-Et), and hexane (ScCO₂-H)) and supercritical 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (ScR134a) methods, respectively. Also, the performances of the applied methods were compared by analysing the total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activity of the extracts. Anethole was the main component of all extracts obtained by SWE (94.5%) and Soxhlet (94.5%) methods, respectively. Also, TPC values were the highest (508.5 mg GAE/100 g kb) in ScR134a extract and the lowest (27.77 mg GAE/100 g kb) in HDC extracts. The antioxidant capacity was found to be the highest in ScCO₂-H (IC₅₀ = 1.58 mg/mL) and the lowest in Soxhlet extracts (IC₅₀ = 0.07 mg/mL). The results showed the great effectiveness of eco-friendly extraction SWE, ScCO₂-Et, and ScR134a methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Antioxidant
• essential oil composition
• extraction
• Pimpinella anisum
• total phenolic content
• Pimpinella

Funding

This academic work was funded by Mersin University Research Fund (Project No: BAP-2019-3-TP3-3756).

Highlights

The performances of conventional and eco-friendly extraction methods were compared.

Total phenolics, antioxidant activity, and chemical composition of Anise were evaluated

six different extraction methods were applied and several solvents were used.

SWE, ScCO2-Et, and ScR134a methods showed high effectiveness

Anethole was the main component in all extracts and was 94.5% in the SWE and Soxhlet methods.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).