What is it about?

When citrus fruits are harvested, large amounts of leaves are discarded as waste. This study shows that these leaves contain valuable health-promoting compounds, and that natural solvents made from simple, safe ingredients can extract them better than conventional chemical solvents. The extracts obtained with these natural solvents had stronger antioxidant and anticholinergic activity, and remained stable for longer during storage. This offers a sustainable way to valorize agricultural waste.

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Why is it important?

Most extraction methods rely on organic solvents that are harmful to health and the environment. This work demonstrates that a natural solvent made from choline chloride and glycerol can outperform ethanol, both in extraction efficiency and in protecting the extracted compounds during storage. This is especially relevant now, as regulations increasingly push industries to adopt safer, more sustainable processes. Take home message: Greener extraction is not just possible, it can be more effective and produce more stable products than traditional methods.

Perspectives

What we enjoyed most about this study was the opportunity to work at the intersection of green chemistry and natural product research. We faced real challenges, from handling viscous solvents to optimizing extraction conditions, but each obstacle taught us something new. Seeing that natural solvents could not only match but outperform ethanol in both extraction efficiency and storage stability was genuinely rewarding. I hope this work encourages other researchers to explore agricultural waste as a valuable resource rather than a problem to dispose of.

PhD Jose Antonio Mendiola
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

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This page is a summary of: Development of a sustainable extraction and storage stability of antioxidant and anticholinergic pressurized natural deep eutectic solvent extracts from Citrus reticulata leaves, Food and Bioproducts Processing, January 2025, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.fbp.2024.11.006.
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