EVALUATION OF THE ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF PLANT EXTRACTS OBTAINED BY SUPERCRITICAL FLUID EXTRACTION

The aim of this work was to evaluate the antioxidant properties of ginger and rosemary extracts, obtained by supercritical extraction. The extracts were characterized by HPLC, GC-MS, phenolic compounds content and antioxidant activity. The main active compounds were identified and high content of phenolic compounds was observed. The extracts presented high antioxidant activity against the free radicals ABTS(center dot+) (350 and 200 mM Trolox/g, for ginger and rosemary, respectively) and DPPH center dot (145 and 80 mM Trolox/g, for ginger and rosemary, respectively). These results suggested that the attained extracts are potential substitutes of synthetic antioxidants used in chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries.