HIGHLIGHTS Review of pressurized hot water extraction of bioactive compounds, 2009-14 Chemical and physical properties of pressurized hot liquid water Equipment, method optimization, applications, coupling and future prospects Challenges with degradation and other chemical reactions during extraction ABSTRACT The purpose of this review is to give the reader a thorough background to the fundamentals and applications of pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE) for the analysis of bioactive compounds. We summarize the field in the period 2009-14, and include fundamentals of water as a solvent: equipment; method optimization; applications; coupling; and, future prospects. We highlight that solvent properties of water are tunable by changing the temperature, particularly self-ionization, dielectric constant, viscosity, diffusivity, density and surface tension. Furthermore, important aspects to consider are the risk of degradation of the analytes and other potential reactions, such as hydrolysis, caramelization and Maillard reactions that may lead to erroneous results. For the extraction of bioactive compounds, we report PHWE methods based on using water of 80-175°C and short extraction times. In conclusion, PHWE provides advantages over conventional extraction methods, such as being "greener", faster and more efficient.
Why another review article on pressurized hot water extraction?Pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE) is an extraction technique that uses liquid water as extractant (extraction solvent) at temperatures above the atmospheric boiling point of water (100°C/273 K, 0.1 MPa), but below the critical point of water (374°C/647 K, 22.1 MPa) (Fig. 1). The use of PHWE in analytical chemistry started with the work in environmental analysis by Hawthorne and colleagues in the mid-1990s [1,2], and can also be referred to as subcritical water extraction (SWE), superheated water extraction and pressurized liquid extraction or accelerated solvent extraction with water as a solvent. There are a few relatively recent review articles on analytical PHWE, which the reader is recommended to read [3][4][5][6][7].The aim of this review article is to give a thorough background on the fundamental properties of water -an aspect that has been virtually overlooked in most review articles written so far about analytical PHWE. Hence, the first part of this review article concerns the fundamentals of chemical/physical properties of water and how these change with the increase in temperature, as well as how these affect the extraction performance both positively and negatively in different analytical applications.The second part deals with technical solutions of PHWE and how to conduct the experiment in practice. This technical part includes discussions on using commercially available and home-built equipment. The third part includes aspects on method optimization in PHWE. The fourth part summarizes some of the key applications and related publications mainly in the field of extraction of bioactive compounds from plants, food, ...