Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of tagitinin C from Tithonia diversifolia

Different parameters as temperature, pressure, solvent mass and sample granulometry governing the extraction yield of tagitinin C from the aerial parts of Tithonia diversifolia were optimised. An experimental design was carried out to map the effects of pressure (at 20.3, 30.4 and 40.5 MPa) and temperature (at 40, 60 and 80degreesC) on the extraction yield of the active component and to determine the optimal conditions for the extraction of tagitinin C from T diversifolia. The best conditions are met for a pressure of 35.0 MPa and a temperature of 68degreesC. The effect of the particle size was studied under low pressure (13.7 MPa) and temperature (40degreesC) conditions, which failed to extract quantitatively the tagitinin C from leaves sieved to 250 mum size. The reduction of the particle size increased the extraction yield which became comparable to that of the optimised SFE for the particle in the range of 0-63 mum. From the analysis of extraction kinetic curves of 200 mg of plant with supercritical carbon dioxide (range of 5-30 g), it appears that 15 g of this supercritical fluid is never limiting. The optimised supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) was compared favourably to Soxhlet extraction with dichloromethane (S) and to maceration followed by lixiviation with diethyl ether (ML), which gave similar extraction yields but higher extract content of tagitinin C were found using SFE (15.6 and 30.7% w/w tagitinin C in S and ML extracts, respectively, versus 52.8% in SFE extract).