DEVELOPMENT AND OPTIMIZATION OF A MICROWAVE-ASSISTED EXTRACTION OF PLUMIERIDE FROM Allamanda cathartica L. FLOWERS

A simple and efficient microwave-assisted extraction process has been developed in order to extract plumieride from Allamanda cathartica flowers. The extracts have been obtained through microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) process with ethanol and ethyl acetate at different time, power and temperatures. Static maceration at room temperature with ethanol and ethyl acetate was obtained in order to compare the efficiency of extraction. HPLC method was validated to quantify plumieride in the extracts. The analyzed parameters: linearity (R2 = 0.999), precision (CV 3.3%), recovery (98%), specificity (97%), limit of detection (1 µg mL-1), and limit of quantification (2 µg mL-1) were satisfactory. The yield of plumieride reached 43% in the extracts under the optimal MAE conditions (10 min, 300W). Plumieride recoveries by conventional extraction method were 12% with ethanol and 22% with ethyl acetate. Time and power parameters on plumieride extraction yield was determined by applying a factorial design and surface plots. Ethanol was the best extractor solvent and it was possible to obtain high contents (52 mg g-1 of dry flowers) at optimized conditions. It can be concluded that MAE process has actual advantages over the conventional extraction method in terms of shorter time and higher efficiency to recover plumieride from A. cathartica flowers.