EXTRACTION OF SECONDARY METABOLITES FROM PLANT-MATERIAL - A REVIEW

This review article intends to give an overview of the developments in the extraction technology of secondary metabolites from plant materia l. There are three types of conventional extraction techniques. In old er of increasing technological difficulty, these involve the use of so lvents, steam or supercritical fluids. Each of these types of extracti on methods is described in detail with respect to typical processing p arameters and recent developments. Following the discussion of some te chnical and economic aspects of conventional and novel separation proc esses, a few general conclusions about the applicability of the differ ent types of extraction techniques are drawn.