Asian Journal
Of Traditional Medicines

Abstract: The optimum conditions for extracting oleanolic acid (OA) from Fructus Ligustri Lucidi by supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) were investigated. TLC and HPLC were used for monitoring the effects of the changes in conditions. A single factor exploration and then an orthogonal test of SFE were investigated for the optimum conditions. The optimum conditions involved using 80 % ethanol (1:1 with regard to the materials, v/w) immersing the materials for 1 hour, then extracting them for 3 hours at a pressure of 18 MPa, a temperature of 60 , a CO₂ volume of 4.8 L/h, and using 95 % ethanol (2:1 to the materials, v/w) as the entrainer. A total of 87.4 % of the oleanolic acid was extracted. The extracted oleanolic acid accounted for 0.55 % of the total material. Compared with the routine method of solvent extraction, the SFE technique has the advantages of a shorter extraction time, a higher content of active component, easier post-treatment, and a higher product quality. The results of this study show that extracting oleanolic acid from Fructus Ligustri Lucidi by SFE is feasible and very practical.

Key words: Fructus Ligustri Lucidi, oleanolic acid (OA), supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), optimum condition, SFE