Innovative and ecofriendly methods and pretreatments for essential oil extraction: An update

VALERIA CAVALLARO; ANA PAULA MURRAY; FERREIRA MARÍA LUJÁN

Studies in Natural Products Chemistry

Elsevier

Año: 2023;

Historically, a variety of essential oils (EOs) have been used for their aroma and flavor as well as for the important biological activities they display such as antibacterial, antioxidant, antifungal, antiparasitic, antiviral, enzyme inhibitor and insecticide. Nowadays, EOs have several important applications in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic and agricultural industries. Various investigations have revealed that the composition and quality of EOs can be altered due to the extraction methods and solvent used. The most common extraction methods include hydrodistillation (HD), steam distillation (SD), cold pressing and solvent extraction. Although these techniques have been known and studied for many years, their application is time-consuming and shows a large number of disadvantages, such as the loss of highly volatile compounds, low extraction efficiency and possible toxicity due to the presence of residual solvents. As a consequence, and in search of environmentally friendly methods, innovative and alternative techniques are currently available to improve the recovery of these natural products. Most of these methods are based on the degradation or disruption of the plant cell wall to better release the inner components. Among them, we can highlight the use of cellulases, hemicellulases, pectinases, oxidases and combination of them as enzymatic pretreatment, the use of supercritical CO2 as an extraction medium, ultrasound, microwave and ohmic heating-assisted extraction. Recently, the field of (bio)mimetics of enzymes has growth, mainly in case of oxidoreductases, and the application in oxidative degradation of the plant cell walls is in the beginning. In this chapter, emergent and ecofriendly pretreatments (and the combination with extraction processes that could be easily applied in large-scale industrial production) have been critically reviewed. Also, insights into the mechanism of action of each process have been discussed. Finally, conclusions and future perspectives as well as recommendations have been highlighted in this chapter.Aún no aparece en la web. Se incluye en el archivo la comunicación de aceptación de Elsevier.