Evaluation of the saponin green extraction from Ziziphus spina-christi leaves using hydrothermal, microwave and Bain-Marie water bath heating methods

Abstract

Abstract Saponin as a biosurfactant was extracted from Iranian Ziziphus spina-christi leaves using three green extraction methods namely, autoclave, microwave and Bain-Marie heating methods. In this study, three solvents namely, methanol, ethanol and water were used to extract saponin. The results revealed that water, as compared to the methanol and ethanol, is a more suitable solvent to extract saponin from the Z. spina-christi leaves. The obtained results indicated that saponin extraction using autoclave provided more suitable physico-chemical properties along with a better yield. In fact, maximum foam volume (12.56 cm3), color intensity (3.24% absorbance unit [a.u.]) and turbidity (1.39% a.u.) of the extracted solutions was obtained by the autoclave heating method. The high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) results also illustrated that the amounts of extracted saponin using autoclave, Bain-Marie and microwave heating extraction methods were 14, 8.8 and 1.3 (intensity mV), respectively. The results obtained by HPLC were reconfirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis.