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Development of a technology for obtaining an aqueous extract from Morinda citrifolia L. leaves

Abstract:

Introduction: Morinda citrifolia L. (noni) is a plant that has aroused great interest in the last few years because of the many medicinal properties of its fruits, roots, bark, seeds and particularly its leaves that have antiinflammatory, astringent, antiseptic and hypoglucemic effects. Medicinal plants and their bioactive extracts are increasingly incorporated into the drug industry to replace traditionally- made preparations and to increase the quality of herbal medicines. Objectives: to develop technology at lab scale that allows obtaining standardized M. citrifolia leaf extract to be further dried in order to obtain the raw material for the preparation of different pharmaceutical forms, and also to scale up a batch of the aqueous extract at industrial level. Methods: operational parameters for obtaining standardized M. citrifolia leaf aqueous extract and its further scaling up at industrial level were studied. The correlation between the refraction index and the extract's total solid concentration was determined. Results: a new lab technology was devised to obtain aqueous extract from M. citrifolia leaves; the scaling up of a 25 kg batch of leaves showed satisfactory results from the technological viewpoint since all the phases of this process may be reproduced. Conclusions: the adequate operational conditions for higher solid extraction in obtaining the M. citrifolia leaf aqueous extract at the experimental phase were ascertained. There is linear relation between the extract concentration and the refraction index. The scaling up of the batch of leaves showed positive results.