Ecofriendly microwave-assisted reaction and extraction of bioactive compounds from hawthorn leaf

The main active components in hawthorn leaves possess various biological activities such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and hypolipidemic effects. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an effective and reliable extraction method to extract these active compounds from hawthorn leaves.

To establish a simple, rapid, and sensitive method for extraction and determination of polyphenolic compounds from hawthorn leaves.

In this study, a microwave-assisted reaction and extraction (MARE) combined with ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detector method was established to extract and determine the polyphenolic compounds in hawthorn leaves. The solid reagent aqueous solutions were applied as extraction solvents, preventing the use of organic solvents. The target analytes were identified by quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry. Several experimental parameters that can significantly affect the extraction efficiency were evaluated and optimised.

The optimal conditions were as follows: 0.1 g of sodium carbonate was used as solid reagent, the amount of sodium borate was set at 0.01 g, extraction time was 10 min, extraction temperature was set at 50°C, pH value was adjusted to 7. The validation experiments demonstrated that the method had high sensitivity with the limits of detection in the range 26.5-37.7 ng/mL. The average recoveries ranged from 80.22% to 93.27%.

In this work, the proposed MARE method was successfully applied to extract and determine polyphenolic compounds in hawthorn leaf samples. Compared with other reported methods, the present method was faster, greener, and more sensitive.