Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation extraction based on microwave-assisted preparation of deep eutectic solvents coupled with GC-MS for analysis of essential oils from clove buds

In recent years, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as green and sustainable solvents have been widely used in the effective extraction of natural products. Usually, DESs are synthesized by heating and stirring method which takes a long time and energy. In this case, a microwave assisted preparation technique was used to form DESs for saving time and energy. And the DESs as pretreatment solvents were combined with microwave-assisted hydrodistillation (MAHD) for the extraction of essential oils (EOs) from the clove buds in this work. The maximum essential oils yield of 4.60% was obtained with the microwave power of 600 W, the pretreatment time of 5 min and the hydrodistillation time of 40 min using a deep eutectic solvent composed of choline chloride and lactic acid (molar ratio with 1:2). In addition, the essential oil was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), a total of 40 compounds were identified. Compared with MAHD, water-based MAHD and traditional hydrodistillation (HD), the content and composition of essential oil extracted by DES-based MAHD were higher. Thus, the combination of deep eutectic solvents with a microwave-assisted technique in this study provided an eco-friendly way of extracting essential oils.