Eucalyptol-based green extraction of brown alga Zonaria tournefortii

A green extraction method, based on the use of 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol) as biosolvent, has been developed to prepare crude extracts from the brown alga Zonaria tournefortii characterized by chemical composition, particularly dominated by phenolic compounds derived from phloroglucinol. The main advantage of the developed technique are the recovery of eucalyptol, based on multistep liquid-liquid extraction with distilled water, followed by centrifugation and elimination of the aqueous phase, and the complete recycling of biosolvent by steam distillation. A comparative study between the proposed green extract and the conventional extract, prepared by solvent maceration using the mixture CH2Cl2/MeOH (1/1:v/v), was performed in terms of qualitative and quantitative determination of several parameters as:(i) the total phenolic content determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu assay, (ii) the presence of phenols determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and (iii) the antioxidant activity assessed by the DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging assay. In short, eucalyptol provides a safe and selective extraction of phenolic compounds from Zonaria tournefortii with no environmental side effects and a good recovery of the solvent.