Yellow and Amber Leaves' Lipophilic Phytochemicals Obtained by Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction

Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction was used for the extraction of yellow and amber leaves. The lipophilic phytochemicals present in the analyzed leaves were as follows: neophytadiene, hexahydrofarnesyl acetone, octadecanal, 1-octadecanol, phytol, squalene and α-tocopherol. α-cadinol was present in yellow and β-sitosterol in amber leaves. The Box-Behnken design was used for the optimization of pressure, temperature and CO flow rate and response surface methodology for the total extraction yield and α-tocopherol relative amount. The total extraction yield was 1.62% for yellow and 1.52% for amber leaves. The α-tocopherol relative amount was 80.03 mg per 100 g of dry plant material for yellow leaves and 315.30 mg per 100 g of dry plant material for amber leaves. The effects of temperature and CO flow rate were found to have a significant influence on the total extraction yield for both plant materials analyzed. The effects of pressure and temperature significantly influenced the α-tocopherol relative amount in both plant materials used. The optimum extraction conditions for the total extraction yield were 30 MPa, 40 °C and 3 kg·h CO flow rate for both plant samples. In the case of the α-tocopherol relative amount, the optimum temperature was 40 °C, while the pressure and CO flow rate were slightly different. The predicted values matched well with the experimental values for the total extraction yield and α-tocopherol relative amount in all plant materials used for the experiment.