Off-line Supercritical Fluid Extraction and Capillary Gas Chromatography of Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids in Senecio Species

Abstract

The pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) fraction of two Senecio species (Senecio inaequidens and Senecio cordatus) was extracted by off-line supercritical fluid extraction (sfe) and analyzed by capillary gas chromatography. Sfe was carried out with a home-assembled apparatus, using MeOH/CO2 as extraction medium, at 55-degrees and 15 MPa. Compared to the classical MeOH Soxhlet extraction, this technique requires a smaller sample amount and provides a quicker extraction, a simplified PA fraction clean-up, and a higher recovery.