How we can prepare different plant extracts for phytochemical analysis?

Eshak Mourad El-Hadidy

Agricultural Research Center, Egypt
by 1- boiling water 2- by ethanol or methanol extract 3- by acetone, the best solvent 4- by hexan when mix solution
between polar and non polar solvent (hydrophobic and hydrophelic solvent).
Barbara Król-Kogus
Medical University of Gdansk
Yes, you can also try different extraction techniques - e.g. classical liquid-liquid extraction, sonication, microwave
extraction, etc. On the other hand, you can also prepare extracts in different solvents (as is it suggested above) or
prepare one (e.g. water) and fractionate it between different solvents. There are many approaches, you can choose.
Good luck!
Sabina W Wachira
Dedan Kimathi University of Technology
The extraction can target non-polar, moderately polar or polar components. This means you can use different
solvents starting from less polar solvents like hexane to highly polar solvents. In most cases three different solvents
(e.g. hexane, ethyl acetate, methanol) are used. The assumption is that hexane gives all the non polar compounds,
ethyl acetate gives moderately polar compounds while methanol gives polar compounds.
Rakesh K N
Kuvempu University
For phytochemical screening I prefer sequential solvent extraction from low polar solvent like hexane to highly polar
methanol
Daniela Santi
National University of Cordoba, Argentina
Hi Kumar!

I suggest you make an extraction with solvents of increasing polarity. I used to use in first place hexane, then
benzene, ethyl acetate and ethanol.

Regards!
Sushil Kumar Middha
Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women
Ya true, i totally agree with Claudio. extraction process depends on your compound of interest. Well, there are a lot
of techniques as said by previous authors.

There is one beautiful article by Italian ministry. just check

https://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media/Publications/Pub_free/Extraction_technologies_for_medicin
al_and_aromatic_plants.pdf
Akintayo L Ogundajo
Lagos State University
I prefer cold extraction method by percolation, simply because some of the bioactive secondary metabolites present
in the plant are heat labile and can be easily denatured in case you are interested in them in their pure form. Heat is
not required in cold extraction, all it just required is repeated percolation with solvent until the extraction is exhaustive
the yield too is very encouraging

Which is the best solvent for herbal

extraction?
We are aware of the fact that some type of solvent is required for isolating a compound from herbs. I personally
believe that water is the best solvent since mostly decoction is prepared using water by the herbalist or medicine
man. What are your suggestions?

Adolf Nahrstedt

University of Münster

It depends on what you want to do. If you want to pharmacologically test a traditionally used phytomedicine that is
usually used as a water decoction (hot) or extraction (hot or cold), you should use water in the same manner as the
traditional medicine is prepared. When testing this in an animal model, take care to apply it orally (as in human
treatment).

If you want to identify and isolate secondary plant compounds you should use methanol (lower boiling point) or
ethanol (somewhat higher boiling point), pure acetone or acetone/warer mixtures. This is for most of the polar and
semipolar constituents. However, for lipophilic compounds you should use lipophilic solvents such as petrol or (bit
mor polar) chloroform. for some of these solvents you should take care; acetone is highly fire sensitive and liver toxic;
chloroform shows liver toxicity; thus take care for a well working hood. Don't use diethylether because of its high
tendency for explosion.

Ying Li

California Department of Public Health

For the purpose of drug / medical study experiment using plant/ herb extraction, one of the keys is that all of
extraction solvents / chemicals should NOT have toxic effect(s) or strong interfering efforts to living cells, animals, and
human beings.

About organic solvents applied for extraction, some of them have high toxicity to living cells, such as Methanol,
Acetone, Chloroform, Dichloromethane, etc.; some solvents in low boiling point have high risk in laboratory and
manufactory safety issues; it is better to opt out these chemicals/solvents.

In addition, to the early study experiment design, cost effectiveness and working efficiency should be considered, too.

Using high toxic chemicals / solvents, you have to COMPLETELY dry out the extraction, and then you need to do
solvent residue test to each batch of products; and if the residue in the extraction dryness is high, you have to do
many more study experiments on all cell biological, animal, and human study tests with the toxic blank
solvent/chemical A, B, C, D, … as negative comparison tests without herb/plant involved. Whereas on extraction
using the solvents of Water, Ethanol, Ethyl Acetate, and Hexane, which have no toxic effect(s) or minor interfering
efforts to the living cells, animals, and human beings, you only need to do one blank test on water base.

Water extraction product mainly contains metals, ions, high hydrophilic compounds, and water soluble
proteins/enzymes, glycoproteins, peptides, amino acids, nucleotides, sugars, and polysaccharides.

Ethanol extraction product mainly contains high hydrophilic compounds (including very polar neutral, basic and acidic
compounds, amino acids, nucleotides, sugars, and polysaccharides).

Ethyl Acetate extraction product mainly contains medium hydrophobic compounds (including medium and low polar
neutral, basic and acidic compounds), of which, steroids, wax, fatty acids, alkaloids, and polar-chain carbonated
polymers are expected.

Hexane extraction product mainly contains low or non-polar hydrophobic compounds with extremely high lipophilicity,
of which low polar neutral compounds, steroids and high carbon fatty acids are expected).

Md Noushad Javed

Jamia Hamdard University

The solvent selection for isolation of any phyto-constituent depend upon its solubility in that solvent.

water are used if nature of phyto-constituents is polar

Alcohol is used for if its slightly non-polar (used for both polar and non polar)

Non polar solvent like ether and acetone are used for highly non polar solvent.

Hope I have clear on it that on the basis of polarity of your compound of interest you have to choose best solvent
which are best suited to solublize the compound in it as well as should be preferred nontoxic, environment friendly.
Diane Woehlke

Marshfield Clinic

I would agree with most of these comments, but overall, I would suggest that it depends on the herb and what you
are looking for. As an herbalist, I generally like the constituents of the whole plant, not an isolated one; most
herbalists would agree.

Resins, myrrh for example, will only extract in 95% etoh. Lemon balm, on the other hand, is almost totally water
soluble; or if you want it long term [tincture], 25% alcohol is best. It also depends on whether or not the herb is fresh
or dry. Most herbs will generally extract dry in 40% etoh. Generally.

I've been making herbal preps for nearly 20 years and I usually consult Michael Moore [now deceased] and James
Green, both herbalists; James Duke, the U.S. ethnobotanist; and Kerry Bone, chemist/herbalist, to name a few whose
texts I consult when I prepare herbal medicines.

Arvind, you mentioned decoctions. Those - made with twigs, roots, hard berries - are generally water soluble, often
cold water maceration overnight [like marshmallow root]; strained and pressed and preserved with a bit of alcohol
[25%] or a concentrated syrup for preservation.

That's the 'medicine woman' way.

Diane

Noha L. Ibrahim

Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Research Institute, Sadat City University, EGYPT

factors should be considered when selecting a solvent:

polarity;

boiling temperature - this should be low in order to facilitate removal of the solvent from the product;

reactivity - the solvent should not react chemically with the extract, nor should it readily decompose;

viscosity - must be low;

stability to heat, oxygen and light;

cost and safety

The organic solvents more frequently used are:

aliphatic hydrocarbons: propane, butane, hexane

alcohols: methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol

hydrocarbons with a carbonyl group: acetone, methyl acetate

halogen derivation: dichloromethane, dichloroethane, freons.

Sandeep Bind

Independent Researcher

For phytochemical constituents are depends of polarity and size , this factors are major role in individual compounds
isolation but selection of solvents for extraction it is also vital part of for natural products isolation. as per my
experience if you have extract thermosensitive use ethanol and water combination and otherwise use ethanol is best
sovents for extraction (non toxic to cell or biology activity) in cold extraction (successive extraction method.)
Razakarivony Andrianambinina A

University of Antananarivo

Hallo,

As said before, the choice of solvent depends on the product that you want to get. But for me, i always used a mixture
of two solvent (CH2Cl2/ / MeOH) so that you can extract the non-polar and polar compounds. or you can try also
another mixture of two solvent

Michael Mcmullen

University of Westminster

The choice of menstruum is dependent on end use. As a European-style herbalist, who uses plant extracts for clinical
treatments, my view is that above 16-18% ethanol the fibre, complex carbohydrates, proteins etc are excluded. At
25% ethanol the polar substances are present but not the gums, resins or oils and not some alkaloids. At 45%
ethanol both polar and non-polar substances are present if the extraction process is prolonged, more than 3 days, as
the concentrated menstruum has a different solvency to original menstruum composed of purely ethanol and water.
Higher ethanol levels 70 to 90% are required for the extraction of gums, resins and oils. These later products are not
clinically elegant and so I prefer encapsulated herbs.

- di ko kasabot ini, pero murag useful

Deepak Kumar Semwal

Uttarakhand Ayurved University, Dehradun

In my opinion the mixture of organic and inorganic solvents is good choice. You can use methanol/ethanol with water
in equal ratio (i.e. 1:1) for the polar compounds including quaternary alkaloids. However, for nonpolar compounds,
you can use chloroform/n-hexane

Ajay Sharma

Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology

Dear sir it depends upon many factors as discused above. but for the extraction of broad array of compounds use of
methanol, ethanol and ethyl acetate has been recomended by many research groups. rest it follow the rule of like
disolve like. now a day for better extraction of secondary metabolites from herbs combination of solvents may be
used i.e. methanol-water, chlorofom-hexane, chloroform-ethylacetate, etc.

although extraction by water is safe ,consider that all of the compounds won't be
extracted (BTW when water is used as solvent here we call it essential oil instead of
extract).
in my opinion chloroform is the most powerful solvent for extracting the whole
compounds. i used to soak herbs in chloroform for 3-4 day & after that compounds, of
this chloroform extract, were separated by column chromatography toward their polarity.

 I-chromatography diay after?

Arjyabrata Sarker
Jahangirnagar University
I'll suggest ethanol as the optimum solvent rather than methanol as methanol sometimes shows
toxic effects with the herbal medicine or plant constituents, moreover methanol in many cases needs
to purify, which indeed makes a problem.
Deleted profile
Added an answer
It depends the nature of the active compounds present in the plant. If the active compounds are hydrophilic in nature,
the ideal choice is water decoction (hot) or extraction (hot or cold). If the active compounds are hydrophobic means
better extracts with organic solvents.

3 years ago

Ibrahim Bulduk

Usak Üniversitesi

Water the best solvent for herbal extraction

Mojtaba Heydari

Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

It depends of the active compounds in the plant which you want to extract. However the hydro-alcoholic extract is the
most popular and suitable one.

Mahesh T S

Jeevan Jyothi Ayurveda Medical College, Aligarh

It depends on which compound is to be extracted. If it is in general then water itself is the best solvent as many of the
herbs gives out maximum extraction through water. But if the compound to be extracted is a non water soluble in
nature then one can go into different solvents like chloroform, petroleum ether, acetone, ethanol, methanol, etc.

Oktay Yildiz

Karadeniz Technical University

What will be extracted? polar or apolar? methanol or ethanol is good solvent. You can use water but you cant
evaporated water easly. Methanol and ethanol is good solvent and easly can be eavoprated under 50-60 degrees.

YOGESH CHANDRA TRIPATHI

Forest Research Institute Dehradun

Choice of solvent for extraction of plant material depends on purpose of extraction and type of compounds you intend
to isolate. A plant material contains different class of compounds with varying degree of solubility with solvent. In
general for total extraction Aqueous acetone, ethanol or methnol is use for total extraction. Other solvent like pt. ether,
chloroform, acetone, ethanol, methanol, etc are used to extract compounds in order of their affinity/solubility with
specific solvent. .

Ali Shafaghat

Islamic Azad University of Khalkhal Branch, Khalkhal, Iran

I agree with this opinion,"it depends on what you want to do". The extraction methods are important, too.
Hydrodistillation is a suitable method for essential oil extraction. n-hexane or petroleum ether are good solvent for
nonpolar constituents such as long chain hydrocarbons,lipids, some mono and sesquiterpenes and so on, in suxhelet
apparatues.
Conclusions:
1. Most say: The choice of the solvent depends in the product (compound)
that you want to get. (or depends on the compound you want to isolate)
 Then choose the solvent that dissolves that kind of compound
2. Just one said : that it depends on the herb and what you are looking for.