Overview of extraction methods for phytochemicals: Principles, applications, and future directions

Natural bioactive compounds in dietary supplements and functional foods are valued for their role in health and disease prevention, leading to global demand. This has led to increased interest in cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable food and plant matrix chemical extraction technologies. This review contrasts classical and innovative bioactive extraction methods and demonstrates how eco-innovative approaches can be beneficial for food sustainability. Conventional techniques are widely used, but they frequently require substantial amount of solvent and energy as well as time, and they often harm the environment. On the other hand, new green technologies, such as ICD (instant controlled pressure drop) technology and PEF (pulsed electric field), SFE with CO2, UAE (power ultrasound assisted extractions) and MAE assist the efficiency of the extraction by reducing solvent consumption and waste/energy use. This review is original as it considers these strategies from technological and sustainability viewpoints, with focusing on extraction yield, process efficiency, eco-design and resource recovery. The present study emphasizes the necessity of combining technological performance with environmental and economic conditions to implement circular bioeconomy configurations in the nutraceutical and functional food sector. The biologically active compound extraction by the environmentally friendly techniques such as SFE, UAE, MAE, PEF and DIC improved the recovery of bioactive compounds with better quality in shorter duration and lesser consumption of resources than conventional methods. Nevertheless, expensive equipment cost, process optimization and absence of standardized evaluation criteria are the barriers for the development of this field. The integrated technology supported by online monitoring and multi-step operations under green solvent systems would be in high demand in the future. These sustainable global food systems are always the object of policies that consider regulatory frameworks, techno-economic study and life cycle assessment as key factors for industry to adopt them.