Enhanced Extraction of Phenolic Compounds from Moringa Oleifera Leaves Using Subcritical Water Ethanol Mixture

A Moringa Oleifera leaves are rich of phenolic compounds that have the ability to serve as antioxidants. Phenolic compounds as an antioxidant can stabilize free radicals with complementing the electron deficiency of free radicals. Conventional method (maceration) can extract phenolic compounds from Moringa Oleifera leaves. However, this method is known as time consuming, inefficient and using solvent that is non-environmentally friendly. In this study, the extraction of phenolic compounds from Moringa Oleifera leaves was enhanced using a subcritical water-ethanol mixture. Fresh and dried Moringa Oleifera leaves were extracted using ethanol solution with different ratio and ratio of dried leaves and ethanol solution at 200 °C for 15 min. The highest amount of phenolic compounds of 87.11 ± 0.81 mg GAE/g of dried leaves with flavonoid contents of 75.79 ± 0.73 mg/g of dried leaves, antioxidant activity of 88.75 ± 0.93 mg vitamin C/L and yield of extracts of 32.73 % ± 0.08 were obtained under following operation conditions: ratio of dried leaves 0.13:20 (g/mL) and ethanol solution 96 %. The utilization of ethanol solution as a solvent on the subcritical condition was able to enhance the amount of total phenolic compounds, flavonoid content, antioxidant activity and yield of extract.