EXTRACTION CONDITIONS FOR DIFFERENT PARTS OF MELOCAN (SMILAX EXCELSA L.) USING SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE

Melocan, which is very important in both traditional Turkish cuisine and traditional medicine, especially in the Black Sea region of Türkiye, is a climbing, thorny and perennial plant that grows naturally in the bushy woodlands. In the study, different melocan parts (sprout, fruit and leaf) have been extracted under two different pressure levels (250 and 350 bar), temperatures (30 and 50 °C), durations (60 and 90 minutes), and two different levels of ethanol concentration (10% and 20%) through supercritical carbon dioxide (Sc-CO2) extraction method, which is an environmentally-friendly method. It has been observed that the melocan leaf which has been extracted through Sc-CO2 at 350 bar pressure and 50 °C which has been modified with 20% ethanol for 90 mins has the richest total phenolic substance content (TPC) as 2265.1 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/kg dry weight and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) as 2876.7 mg trolox equivalent (TE)/kg dry weight.