Toward a More Sustainable Sample Preparation in Phytochemistry: Case Studies in Four Subclasses of Alkaloids.
Lucas Apolinário Chibli, Bruna Ribeiro de Lima, Ariadne Magalhães Carneiro, Harley Cardoso Figueiró, Serhat Sezai Cicek, Verena Spiegler, Cristiano Soleo Funari
Journal of Natural Products March 22, 2024 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.3c01048 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Alkaloids harmine, boldine, vincamine, and mescaline extracted from Banisteriopsis caapi, Peumus boldus, Vinca minor, and Trichocereus macrogonus var. pachanoi |
| Intervention | TAME |
| Keywords | Sustainable chemistry Natural compounds Plant extracts Green extraction Medicinal plants |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key findings | Citric acid can replace HCl, and ethyl acetate can replace CH₂Cl₂ in alkaloid extraction without harming efficiency, with alternative solvents TAME and BuOAc further enhancing extraction. |
Abstract
The fact that alkaloids are bases has been the most explored chemical feature of their extraction and purification procedures. The main drawback of these procedures is that they employ undesirable chemicals, with HCl and CH2Cl2 probably being the most commonly employed chemicals in their subsequent steps. This work tested the hypothesis that advantages in recovery efficiency support this common practice. Experiments were conducted in three laboratories, monitoring the alkaloids harmine (1), boldine (2), vincamine (3), and mescaline (4) extracted from Banisteriopsis caapi, Peumus boldus, Vinca minor, and Trichocereus macrogonus var. pachanoi, respectively. The research demonstrated that HCl could be replaced with citric acid (CA) without loss or even better extraction performance. The recommended EtOAc could completely replace CH2Cl2 in three out of four study cases and partially in the fourth case without harming the extraction efficiency. In addition, the alternative solvents tert-amyl methyl ether (TAME) and n-butyl acetate (BuOAc) could enhance the extraction of alkaloids. These results might incentivize natural products laboratories to consider sustainability more routinely, thus being closer to current practices in the pharmaceutical industry, which has been replacing solvents and processes with greener ones.