Vitamin B3-based protic ionic liquids as green solvents for the isolation of astilbin from rhizoma smilacis glabrae

In Asian, rhizoma smilacis glabrae (RSG) is viewed as traditional food, and herb, and its main bioactive component is astilbin. The extraction of astilbin from RSG by traditional solvents suffers from the lower extraction efficiency, and longer extraction time. In this work, green solvents, vitamin B3-based protic ionic liquids (VB3PILs) were used to extract astilbin from RSG in combination with microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) method. Compared with the traditional solvents, for instance alcohols, and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) aqueous solution, the VB3PIL, nicotinamidium lactate (NALA), exhibits higher extraction ability, and shorter extraction time (20 s). The extraction ability of VB3PILs depends on their physicochemical properties, such as viscosity, hydrophobicity, and hydrogen-bonding ability. To comprehensively conclude the above results, it can be suggested that VB3PILs are green and, high efficient solvents for the extraction of astilbin from RSG, which may have great potential applications in extracting natural products from plant food sources.