A Review on the Green Technology and Innovative Techniques for the extraction of Essential Oil and Active Constituents in Herbs and Spices

Abstract

Increasing demand for natural products from edible plants necessitated the need to replace conventional extraction techniques which are associated with the use toxic solvents, high energy, and longer extraction time and solvent consumption. To address these problems, green extraction techniques are novel extraction methods that are recently receiving research attention. This study reports to the review of green and innovative technology for extraction of essential oil and active ingredients from herbs and spices. The review describes the principle of operation of various extraction methods, merit and demerit of the different extraction approaches with a view of establishing the most suitable technique for extracting thermolabile compounds. The study revealed that the recovery of essential oil and active constituents depends on extraction processes largely used in chemical, biochemical and pharmaceutical industries. Among all methods reviewed, supercritical fluid extraction process (solid – fluid phase extraction) is new process that have the potential for efficient extraction of essential oil and active ingredients from herbs and spices in term of non – usage of toxic solvent and energy saving.