Phytochemical extraction to improve the economic benefits of biomass processing

Phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant components having bioactive activities. Compared with synthetic chemicals, phytochemicals have numerous advantages, and they are now widely used in health foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Phytochemicals also provide a rich natural resource pool for new health food and medicine development. Because of their wide uses, phytochemicals have high economic value for their development and utilization. Phytochemicals are present in a vast number of plants, and their production has a wide range of feedstock sources. In traditional biomass processing, phytochemicals are often considered as wastes and are not recovered. In order to improve the economic benefits, the extraction of phytochemicals has now become an attractive sub-process during the biomass processing. However, the low content of phytochemicals in plants makes their extraction challenging. Efforts are needed to increase the phytochemical content in plants and develop more efficient extraction and separation processes. This editorial briefly discusses phytochemicals and their extraction to improve the economic benefits of biomass processing.