Simultaneous extraction of rosemary and spinach leaves and its effect on the antioxidant activity of products

Mixed vegetal extracts are interesting target of new products as nutraceuticals, superior ingredients for the design of functional food, singular ingredients for cosmetics, etc. In this work the extraction of a mixture of spinach and rosemary leaves (50 wt.% of each plant) was investigated in terms of its antioxidant activity, and compared with the extraction of the separate species. Phenolic diterpenes of rosemary and carotenoids of spinach were target compounds due their recognized biological activities. Two different extraction techniques were applied, namely pressurized liquid extraction using hexane at two different temperatures (100 and 150 °C) and supercritical fluid extraction with pure carbon dioxide at 40 °C and two different pressures (20 and 30 MPa). For each extraction technique and conditions three different raw materials were employed: spinach leaves, rosemary leaves and the mixture 50:50 of spinach and rosemary leaves. tioxidant activity of the samples produced was evaluated with the ABTS assay and showed to be enhanced when the species are simultaneously extracted, with antioxidant values around 20% higher than the values corresponding to mixing the extracts obtained by separate. A possible synergic effect between carotenoids and phenolic diterpenes was studied, although no specific synergic activity could be observed. However, the enhanced antioxidant activity could be attributed to a definite increase of the concentration of carnosic acid, which was observed in the samples produced by the simultaneous extraction.