Novel Green Solvents for the Separation and Purification of Valuable Natural Ingredients

A special issue of Separations (ISSN 2297-8739). This special issue belongs to the section "Analysis of Natural Products and Pharmaceuticals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 June 2025 | Viewed by 1609

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Institute of Bast Fiber Crops, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha 410205, China
Interests: separation and analysis of natural products; molecularly imprinted materials; nanotoxicology
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural plants contain countless ingredients, and many of them are pharmacologically active. These useful compounds could be used to cure diseases, become construction materials, inspire researchers, and much more. To obtain these valuable natural ingredients, many technologies have been developed over a long history. Specifically, solvents play an important role in their separation. Traditional solvents, such as methanol, ethanol, and petroleum ether, have the disadvantages of polluting the environment, a high toxicity, and the inability to regenerate. Thus, seeking alternative solvents has sparked the interest of researchers. Ionic liquids, called "solvents of the future", have a diverse composition of organic cations and inorganic anions. Moreover, deep eutectic solvents are a new type of green mixed solvent that has rapidly developed in recent years. These novel solvents have broad application prospects due to their advantages, which include low volatility, low vapor pressure, strong thermal stability, and molecular designability. Considering the diversity of natural ingredients, more research on this topic is still warranted.

Dr. Liangliang Liu
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • ionic liquids
  • deep eutectic solvents
  • liquid–liquid separation
  • separation and purification
  • natural materials

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 2180 KiB  
Article
Effective Liquid–Liquid Extraction for the Recovery of Grape Pomace Polyphenols from Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NaDES)
by Alessandro Frontini, Giulio Tarentini, Carmine Negro, Andrea Luvisi, Massimiliano Apollonio and Luigi De Bellis
Separations 2025, 12(6), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/separations12060148 - 2 Jun 2025
Viewed by 270
Abstract
Natural deep eutectic solvents (NaDESs) are emerging solvents for their yield when used for extraction of different molecules, including polyphenols. NaDESs are a cutting-edge technology that offers numerous advantages, including cheap cost, safety, effectiveness and environmental friendliness. However, due to NaDES’ high boiling [...] Read more.
Natural deep eutectic solvents (NaDESs) are emerging solvents for their yield when used for extraction of different molecules, including polyphenols. NaDESs are a cutting-edge technology that offers numerous advantages, including cheap cost, safety, effectiveness and environmental friendliness. However, due to NaDES’ high boiling point, the recovery and separation of compounds after the extraction is the bottleneck of the process. In this work, two affordable methods were tested for the recovery of phenolic compounds from three binary NaDESs (composed of choline chloride mixed separately with lactic acid, tartaric acid or glycerol as hydrogen bond donors): the antisolvent and the liquid–liquid extraction methods. The former was assessed by diluting the extracts with different aliquots of water, employed as antisolvent, which was ineffective. For the liquid–liquid extraction method, ethyl acetate (EtOAc), acetonitrile (ACN), 2-chlorobutane (2-CB) and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MeTHF) were compared. Except for ACN, all solvents were perfectly immiscible with the three NaDESs, forming biphasic systems that were analyzed by colorimetric assays and HPLC/MS. 2-MeTHF applied on a 10-fold water dilution of the NaDES extract reached recovery percentages higher than 90% for most of the non-anthocyanin phenols and good recovery (up to 80%) for some anthocyanins. 2-MeTHF appears to be the first known solvent capable of extracting anthocyanins from NaDESs. Finally, a two-step liquid–liquid extraction performed firstly with EtOAc and subsequently with 2-MeTHF is proposed for the separation of different phenolic fractions. Full article
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