Modeling approaches to optimize the recovery of polyphenols using ultrasound-assisted extraction

Phenolic compounds have received significant attention both by the consumers and scientific community in the last decades because of their wide range of beneficial health effects. The efficient extraction of these biocompounds from natural sources remains an important challenge because of the intrinsic limitations of the traditional extraction methods. The growing interest in natural antioxidants has encouraged the search for innovative and technological solutions capable of providing maximum extraction yields, ensuring the stability of the target molecules, and addressing environment-friendly criteria. Innovative green extraction technologies, namely, ultrasound-assisted extraction, have been drawn as a green and economically viable alternative for improved recovery of polyphenols from natural sources. In order to design a feasible ultrasound-assisted large-scale extraction, it is necessary to optimize different parameters involved in this type of technology. This chapter aims to present different modeling strategies applied currently to optimize the conditions of the ultrasound processes that allow the greatest possible recovery of phenolic compounds from natural sources.