Multifactor assessments to determine the overall performance of supercritical fluid extraction from Gynura procumbens essential oil

Gynura procumbens is a medicinal herb that contains bioactive compounds that can relieve coughs and prevent liver cancer. Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) was suggested as one of the techniques that can be used to extract the valuable compounds from the G. procumbens. SFE was widely applied in extracting medicinal ingredients from herbs. However, most of them were performed only at the laboratory scale. Moreover, study to increase the yield performance, economic studies and safety assessments of the SFE process were also performed; however, these tests were conducted individually. Moreover, to date, there is no integration study between all the factors stated for determining the overall performance of SFE with herbs specifically G. procumbens. The integration between all the factors is beneficial because the data on the overall performance can assist in developing the SFE process with G. procumbens at the pilot or industrial scale. Therefore, this study incorporated a multifactor approach to measure the overall performance of the SFE process towards G. procumbens by using a rating and index approach. A summary of factors, such as the solubility of G. procumbens in CO2, operational cost and safety assessment elements, were taken into consideration as the main influences that determine the overall performance index of this study. I-performance or overall performance of SFE from G. procumbens was successfully assessed and compared with response surface methodology (RSM). Overall, the results from I-performance exhibit satisfactory solubility values when compared to the optimized value from RSM when considering the lowest operational costs in the safest SFE environment.

Automated summary

This study utilized a multifactor approach to assess the overall performance of the SFE process from G. procumbens, considering factors such as solubility, operational cost, and safety assessment elements. The results showed satisfactory performance compared to optimized values, with the lowest operational costs in a safe SFE environment.