Optimization of artemisinin extraction from Artemisia annua L. with supercritical carbon dioxide + ethanol using response surface methodology

Abstract

Malaria is a high priority life-threatening public health concern in developing countries, and therefore there is a growing interest to obtain artemisinin for the production of artemisinin-based combination therapy products. In this study, artemisinin was extracted from the Artemisia annua L. plant using supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO ) modified with ethanol. Response surface methodology based on central composite rotatable design was employed to investigate and optimize the extraction conditions of pressure (9.9-30 MPa), temperature (33-67°C), and co-solvent (ethanol, 0-12.6 wt.%). Optimum SC-CO extraction conditions were found to be 30 MPa and 33°C without ethanol. Under optimized conditions, the predicted artemisinin yield was 1.09% whereas the experimental value was 0.71 ± 0.07%. Soxhlet extraction with hexane resulted in higher artemisinin yields and there was no significant difference in the purity of the extracts obtained with SC-CO and Soxhlet extractions. Results indicated that SC-CO and SC-CO +ethanol extraction is a promising alternative for the extraction of artemisinin to eliminate the use of organic solvents, such as hexane, and produce extracts that can be used for the production of antimalarial products.

Valorization of Tropical Biomass Waste by Supercritical Fluid Extraction Technology

“…At 86 • C and 42.71 MPa with 22 wt.% ethanol co-solvent present, the total volatile compound was significantly reduced from 19.7 to 0.55 µg/g. The addition of ethanol promoted the removal of polar volatile compound from the yellow pea flour, whilst the increase in temperature enhanced the solubility of volatile compound due as a result of the higher solute vapor pressure [31,32]. Another study by Yoswathana [33] also utilized ethanol as the co-solvent in extracting the oil from rambutan seed.…”

Recent advances of green pretreatment techniques for quality control of natural products

“…In order to expand the extraction range of the components of NPs by SFE, some co-solvent can be added to the SFE system to increase the solubility of the original effective components, such as methanol, ethanol, acetone, and ethyl acetate. Ethanol has been applied widely as low-toxic co-solvent in CO 2 SFE [84,[87][88][89][90][91][92]. In addition, Sut et al [93] applied CO 2 SFE with water as ideal co-solvent to extract targets in Eruca sativa.…”

A review on the latest advances in extraction and analysis of artemisinin

“…In recent years, the use of computational tools and mathematical models has increased significantly in all types of phytochemical methods, particularly in the optimisation of extraction parameters in various extraction techniques . A supercritical CO 2 extraction protocol for artemisinin ( 1 ), modified with ethanol, based on response surface methodology developed from central composite rotatable design that helped optimise extraction pressure, temperature, and co‐solvent use, has recently been reported . It can be noted that the response surface methodology explores the interplay between several explanatory variables and one or more response variables, and can be used to maximise the production of a special substance by optimisation of operational factors/variables.…”

“…ultrasoundassisted extraction, utilising various computational tools and mathematical modelling, has been observed in recent years. During the period from 2017 to present, several protocols of ultrasound-assisted extraction and SFE of artemisinin (1) have been reported (Table 1), [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] which will be discussed briefly in the following subsections.…”

“…15 Supercritical fluid extraction using response surface methodology Supercritical CO 2 extraction of artemisinin (1), modified with ethanol, based on response surface methodology developed from central composite rotatable design, that helped optimise extraction pressure, temperature, and CO-solvent use. 16 Ultrasound extraction Ultrasound-assisted extraction of the leaves of A. annua. 17 Ultrasound-assisted extraction of A. annua aerial parts using n-hexane.…”