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Pretreatment on
Phytoconstituents
• Enzymes, besides playing a vital role in all living
organism also have vast number of industrial
applications.
•Scientists are busy exploring newer application
for enzymes. One such area where enzymes
being considered is improving the yield in herbal
drug extraction.
Herbal Drug Extraction
• Herbal plants are nature's gift to mankind for
improving and maintaining lifestyle
• There is need to know which constituents in
the medicinal herb are responsible for
therapeutic use therefore the need arises to
extract, isolate and characterize
phytoconstituents responsible for its
therapeutic use.
Traditional Methods of
Extraction
• Decoction
• Strong decoction
• Tincture
• Maceration
• Distillation/Extraction
• Cold Percolation
• Agitation/Distillation
• Solvent extraction
Decoction
• Decoctions are usually the
method of choice when
working with tougher and
more fibrous plants, barks
and roots (and which have
water soluble chemicals).
• Standard dosages for
decoction are generally one-
half to one cup, two or three
times daily. Again, the
entire day's dosage can be
prepared in the morning (2-
3 cups at one time), and the
remainder refrigerated until
ready to use later in the day.
Strong Decoction
• Depending on the type of plant material used,
strong decoctions are prepared in two general
ways.
• When straining, again, make sure to press on
the cut herb pieces in the strainer to get as
much moisture/decoction out of the herb
pieces.
Tincture
• A tincture is an alcohol and water extract which is used when
plants have active chemicals that are not very soluble in water,
and/or when a larger quantity is prepared for convenience and
wanted for longer term storage. Many properly prepared plant
tinctures can last several years or more without losing potency.
The percentage of alcohol usually helps determine it's shelf-life:
the more alcohol used, the longer the shelf life.
• The type of alcohol can vary from vodka, rum, or 90 to 180 proof
grain alcohol (sold as "everclear" in liquor stores and sometimes
cheaper than vodka). Vodka is fine, but remember if it says 40
proof; it is 40% alcohol and the rest is water.
• Since this method uses a higher ratio of plant to liquid and helps
concentrate the chemicals through the use of alcohol, dosages
needed for tinctures are usually much less than infusions and
decoctions.
• The tincture can be placed directly in the mouth for immediate
absorption, or placed in a small amount of water or juice.
Maceration
• This method of
preparation is certainly
the easiest.
• Normally this is used
for very tender plants
and/or fresh plants, or
those with delicate
chemicals that might be
harmed by heating or
which might be
degraded in strong
alcohol.
Distillation/Extraction
• This is the original extraction
method. Technically,
distillation devices are
"modified soxhlet extracters."
• Our most sophisticated units
which use this process are also
vacuum compatible. Applying
a vacuum to this inside of the
main flask lowers the boiling
point of the solvent enabling
the operator to distill solvent
at much lower temperatures
and to distill much more
quickly.
Cold Percolation
This is a traditional method of extraction
used by herbalists throughout the
world and it's very simple. Above a
flask or vessel is suspended a cone or
tube. The bottom of the tube has a
perforated base which holds ground
herb in place. Solvent is poured into
the top of the tube where it soaks
through the herb leaching out the
extract and then falling out the bottom
end of the tube into the flask. If
desired, the percolation tube can be
wrapped in heating tape to help
facilitate the extraction.
Agitation/Distillation
• This is the accepted method used by most large,
industrial operations which are in the business of
processing herbal extracts. The main reason for
this is that the distillation/extraction method
outlined earlier becomes cost prohibitive and
very time consuming when sized up to industrial
scale.
• To completely leach out the plant material, more
solvent must be introduced into the agitation
vessel whereby the process is repeated. This
process may be repeated 2-4 times to completely
leach out the extract from your herb with each
successive run yielding a leaner batch of extract.
• A press or centrifuge is used to squeeze the liquid
out of the spent plant material.
Solvent extraction
However there is a general
observation that with conventional
solvent extraction process the yield
of extractive seldom goes beyond
60-70 % in the first run. There fore
to recover the reminder repititive
extraction need to be done, which
makes the whole process
uneconomical. Moreover the
extraction with the solvent is the
energy demanding process,which
increarses the cost of operation.
Advanced methods of
herbal extraction
• High Pressure- Supercritical/Sub critical
Extraction
• Enzymatic extraction
High Pressure-
Supercritical/Sub critical
Extraction
• This is the most technologically
advanced extraction system in the
world. Research into the techniques and
applications of this amazing process is
ongoing and Eden Labs is at the
forefront of these investigations.
• The advantages of SFE are the
versatility it offers in pinpointing the
constituents you want to extract from a
given material and the fact that your
end product has virtually no solvent
residues left in it. (CO2 evaporates
completely) The downside is that this
technology is quite expensive.
Enzymatic extraction
Enzyme alone or in combination with other enzyme (blend) can be
used in phytoextraction depending on the composition of the
substrate.
• Structure of plant cell wall
The structure of the plant cell wall is quite complex, and is made up
of various strata (the middle lamella, the primary wall, the
secondary wall, and the tonoplast). The wall of the mature cell is an
amorphous,isotropic, colloidal layer composed mainly of pectic
substances , the ‘primary wall’, or original cambial wall, an
anisotropic layer composed of cellulose and pectic substances, the
‘secondary wall’ deposited upon the primary wall and composed
largely of cellulose. The strata are generaaly composed of
compounds such as pectic substances, hemicellulose, cellulose, and
lipids, interwined with peripheral and integral protein.
• Extensive search has proven that specific enzymes for specific
cementing materials help to break down the hard structure by
increasing the permeability of cell wall and thus allowing the release
of bioactive substances. Also, the herbal extract quality depends on
the age of herbal species, temperature of extraction and the extent of
pulverization of herbs.
Drawbacks of Advantages of enzymatic treatment over
Traditional other methods of extraction
Extraction
• High temperature during • Enzymatic treatment for extraction is different from
water extraction destroys solvent extraction since enzymes are biospecific and
the important heat labile attack only on their sustrates.
active ingredients present • Due to the specificity of enzymes, there is less
in the herbal extract.
chance of degradation of the phytoconstituent and
• All the bioactive also small quantities of enzyme can act on large
ingredients present within quantities of substrate.
the cell walls are not able • Enzymatic action damages cell wall, favouring
to get extracted to their
permeability of phytoconstituent especially the
optimum level due to
constituent of interest.
hard cement bounding
present within the cell • The profitable effects of utilizing enzymes have long
wall. been recognized, with regard in the increasing yields
• of the main products by reducing side products and
The color, flavor, aroma,
low waste treatment.
and consistency of the
final herbal extract are
never consistent from
batch to batch.
• The extraction using • Another advantage is the tailoring
solvents are generally of enzyming complexes to fit the
carried out at high processing requirements because of
temperatures,which may be the mild conditions that avoid
little or of no use if the drastic operational conditions.also
compound of interest is not use of enzyme is circumvented; as
thermostable.therefore, small quantities are required for
enzymatic pretreatment.also use of
enzyme may result in substantial
release of the substance of interest.
• Lower operation temperature can
be used in enzymatic extraction
minimizing energy requirements at
the same time suitable for
thermolabile compounds.usuing
enzyme for facilitated release will
increase the solvent efficiency, as
less solvent will be required for
complete extraction
Enzymes
• What are enzymes?
• Properties of enzyme:
• Bioprocessing Technologies
• Enzymes in bioprocessing