How Is Bakuchiol Extracted?

Solvent extraction involves separating a compound from a solid raw material using a liquid solvent in which the compound to be extracted and isolated is soluble. This process involves several steps:

1. The solvent (usually hexane) and the powder from the seeds of P. corylifolia L. are mixed within a vessel.

2. The solution is filtered.

3. The solvent is evaporated using a rotary vacuum evaporator to obtain a dried, brownish, sticky extract.

Although good extraction yields can be obtained with this method, n-hexane remains an environmentally harmful and hazardous solvent because it is highly flammable. New extraction methods are currently being developed in the cosmetics industry.

In order to avoid environmentally harmful solvents such as hexane or methanol, researchers worked on extracting the oil of babchi seeds with carbon dioxide and then further enriching it with bakuchiol using the technique of molecular distillation.

Extraction of compounds with CO2 dates back to the 1970s. At that time, it was an alternative to the use of conventional extraction solvents, which were often environmentally harmful and damaging. CO2 a suitable gas for the extraction of plant material. Although this type of extraction is very expensive, it provides a high quality vegetable oil from babchi seeds (biochemical composition almost the same as that of the seeds in origin). The principle is simple: carbon dioxide (CO2) flows through the plant material, which in turn is subjected to low temperature and high pressure. The active molecules of the babchi, such as bakuchiol, are extracted naturally before entering another chamber. In this new chamber, the temperature and pressure are controlled to separate the active components of babchi from the CO2.

The extract obtained by the method described above is then subjected to molecular distillation for the enrichment of bakuchiol. This is a distillation under vacuum that isolates the molecules and thus the bakuchiol.