Effect of particle size upon the extent of extraction of antioxidant power from the plants Agrimonia eupatoria, Salvia sp. and Satureja montana

The dependence of the extent of aqueous extraction of antioxidant compounds on particle size and contact time was studied for three important medicinal plants, that are commonly used in infusions: agrimony, sage and savoury. The effect of extraction time was dependent on the plant considered; however, ca. 5 min can be taken as the minimum period required to assure an acceptable degree of extraction of those compounds. As expected, a smaller particle size led to a higher extraction extents; a typical value of 0.2 mm is accordingly recommended. Chlorogenic acid was the dominant phenolic compound extracted from agrimony, whereas caffeic acid dominated in the case of sage or savoury. A mathematical model based on Fick's law was developed from first principles, and its two parameters were suitably fitted to the experimental data generated - in attempts to predict the evolution of antioxidant capacity extracted during contact time, for each plant and each particle size.