Super Antioxidant from Indonesian Propolis: Effect of Process Variables on Value of Antioxidant Activity

Abstract

Propolis is a promising source of natural antioxidants containing bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, flavones, phenolic acids, and phenolic acid ester. To isolate propolis from raw material, the method known as extraction is thoroughly needed. The conventional extraction method using organic solvent shows some drawbacks heading to degradation of bioactive constituents. These works are to develop extraction method called supercritical CO

extraction method and to observe the effect of process variables to antioxidant activity. The raw material was poured into the reactor vessel. During the extraction, the process variables (temperature, pressure and CO flow rate) are set to constant. When the extraction time was completed, the product was filtered and prepared for analysis using HPLC. To determine the antioxidant activity, the DPPH method was applied to each process conditions. This works claim that (1) supercritical CO extraction can improve antioxidant activity; (2) process variables put the impact on antioxidant activity; (3) the extract containing galangin and caffeic acid phenyl ester.