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Optimization of Distillation Conditions for Improved Recovery of Phthalides from Celery (Apium graveolens L.) Seeds

The essential oil of celery (Apium graveolens) is characterized by exceptionally high content of alkylphthalides. The mentioned compounds exhibit a number of biological effects (including hypotensive, lipid-lowering, neuroprotective, and cytotoxic) and are also responsible for distinctive aroma of the plant. In the current work, parameters of conventional hydrodistillation (HD) and simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) were optimized to obtain phthalide-enriched fractions of celery seeds. A positive correlation was shown between hydrodistillation time and improved essential oil and phthalide yields. The 6-h HD of comminuted seeds yielded essential oil (2.9%) with a higher total phthalide content (51%), as compared to the samples collected after 1.5–3.0 h, which gave 2.4–2.7% of oil containing 24.6–39.2% of total phthalides. The oil contained sedanenolide (36.7%), 3-n-butylphthalide (13.1%), and sedanolide (1.1%). A further increase in the total phthalide content was achieved by omitting the size reduction step prior to hydrodistillation (68.8%) and utilization of the salting-out effect (84.3%). Enzyme pretreatment had a negligible effect on essential oil and phthalide yields. The change of distillation mode from HD to SDE significantly increased the oil yield of whole seeds (from 2.8 to 5.8% for 6 h processing) while maintaining its high phthalide content (62.5%), which translated to an increase in the total phthalide yield from 19.4 to 36.0 g/kg.