%0 Journal Article
%T Green Extraction: Enhanced Extraction Yield of Asiatic Acid from Centella asiatica (L.) Nanopowders
%A M. Z. Borhan
%A R. Ahmad
%A M. Rusop
%A S. Abdullah
%J Journal of Applied Chemistry
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/460168
%X Nanopowders of Centella asiatica (L.) were produced using planetary ball mill in order to investigate the differences of water extraction yield of asiatic acid as compared to micropowders of Centella asiatica. Effect of extraction time (20¨C60£¿min) on extraction yield of asiatic acid from Centella asiatica was examined. Results showed that water extraction of asiatic acid using Centella asiatica nanopowders exhibits was almost 50% higher extraction yield with 7.09£¿mg/g as compared to the micropowders of Centella asiatica. It was concluded that nanopowders contributed in enhancing water extraction yield of asiatic acid as compared to micropowders. Thereby utilizing nanopowders in water extraction could improve the extraction of asiatic acid via clean, eco-friendly, and less expensive process. 1. Introduction Centella asiatica (L.) is one of the medicinal plants that has been declared to have a variety of medicinal effects. Its bioactive compounds include asiatic acid, asiaticoside, madecassic acid, and madecassoside. Asiaticoside (Figure 1(a)) is the principal bioactive ingredient among them since asiaticoside gave a better effect on antibacterial and fungicidal activity against bacteria and fungi [1]. Asiatic acid (Figure 1(b)) also displays good biological effects such as promoting collagen synthesis stimulating extracellular matrix accumulation, and promoting fibroblast proliferation in a rat wound model [2]. Figure 1: Chemical structure of (a) asiaticoside and (b) asiatic acid. Asiatic acid is an aglycone form of asiaticoside and easily formed by hydrolyzing the sugar moiety of asiaticoside structure in acid condition. Therefore, some data suggest that the therapeutic effect of asiaticoside may come from asiatic acid [3]. Some studies show the significance of sugar moiety in the structure of asiaticoside which may enhance the bioavailability of asiatic acid compared to the only aglycone structure alone [4]. But once again, enriching asiatic acid in the extract is important since all the synthesizing alkyl groups require hydrolyzing of asiaticoside first prior modification of asiatic acid functional groups [4]. By modification, the asiatic acid may provide us with data in relationship between structural and hepatoprotetive properties in order to develop new novel drugs for treating disease [5, 6]. Extraction of active chemical compounds from natural sources is a most important research area in pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Bioactive compound extraction aims to get a better extraction yield and less time consuming without altering the structure
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jac/2013/460168/