Abstract

Conventional extraction processes for flavoursand essential oils are quite laborious, time-consuming,involve large amounts of solvents and, ultimately maycause some degradation of the target molecules andpartial loss of volatiles. Great improvements may beachieved with the use of ultrasound-assisted extraction(UAE) and microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), or evenwith the combined ultrasound/microwave irradiation. Mainadvantages of these techniques are higher yield,selectivity, stability and quality of flavour compoundsextracts as well as the strong reduction of extraction time.Each matrix however will need a careful optimization ofoperating conditions to avoid the formation of artefactsand off-flavour compounds. As a “case report” the UAEand MAE extraction of vanilla beans is described while inview of a sustainable scale-up, we designed an innovativepilot flow reactor for UAE.