Arijit Das, A. Golder, C. Das
Mar 1, 2015
Citations
1
Influential Citations
26
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Journal
Industrial Crops and Products
Abstract
Abstract Rebaudioside-A (Reb-A) is a natural, non-caloric intense sweetener found in the leaves of stevia. In the present study, enhanced Reb-A extraction is performed using water, a green solvent, which is a good alternative to organic solvents. The experiments were performed in broad ranges of extraction time (15–75 min), leaves to water ratio (2–5%, g/mL) and temperature (50–80 °C) to investigate their effects on Reb-A recovery. The higher cumulative yield of Reb-A recovery at higher leaves to water ratio reduced the extraction efficiency with the progress of contact time. At higher temperature (>60 °C) two opposing phenomena, namely, dissolution and decomposition were observed during the extraction of Reb-A from stevia leaves. Hence, the marginal enhancement in Reb-A recovery was quantitatively compensated by Reb-A degradation. Central composite design (CCD) method was employed to optimize the extraction parameters for maximizing the recovery of Reb-A. The CCD proposed an empirical quadratic equation which successfully predicted the experimental Reb-A recovery. The optimum extraction time was found as 51 min for a leaves to water ratio of 2.36% at 71 °C by which 73.12% Reb-A recovery was achieved. Artificial neural network predicted the experimental yield of Reb-A well over the entire range of test conditions.