Ultrasonic Olive Leaf Extraction for High-Yield Polyphenol Extracts
Produce potent olive leaf extracts rich in oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, verbascoside, flavonoids, and other bioactive polyphenols with Hielscher probe-type sonicators. Ultrasonic extraction accelerates cell disruption and mass transfer, helping manufacturers achieve high yields, short processing times, and reproducible extract quality using water, ethanol-water mixtures, or other suitable solvents.
Ultrasonic Extraction of Bioactive Compounds from Olive Leaves
From laboratory feasibility tests to pilot batches and industrial inline production, Hielscher ultrasonicators give you precise control over amplitude, temperature, energy input, and processing time. This makes ultrasonic extraction an efficient solution for nutraceuticals, botanical extracts, functional foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical ingredient development.
Benefits of Ultrasonic Olive Leaf Extraction in Detail:
- Higher extraction yield: Release intracellular phenolics from olive leaves efficiently using acoustic cavitation.
- Shorter processing time: Reduce extraction time compared with conventional maceration and solvent extraction.
- Mild, solvent-flexible process: Use water, aqueous ethanol, glycerol, oils, or other process-compatible solvents.
- Scalable equipment: Develop your process with lab sonicators and scale linearly to industrial flow-through systems.
- Reproducible quality: Digital control and data logging support consistent extract production.
- Versatile: Designed for nutraceutical manufacturers, botanical extract producers, olive mills, pharmaceutical R&D labs, cosmetic ingredient suppliers, and food-tech companies.
Tell us about your olive leaves as resource and your polyphenol production. We recommend you the best sonicator configuration for increased polyphenol yields.
UIP4000hdT, a 4kW powerful industrial sonicator for botanical extraction
What Makes Olive Leaf Extract so Beneficial?
Olive (Olea europaea) leaves, an agricultural waste or by-product, are a great source os natural antioxidants. Olive leaves contain various polyphenols (also known as biophenols), such as oleuropein and oleacein. Polyphenols occur naturally in plants and contribute to the health benefits of olive leaf extract. Besides polyphenols, the leaves of the olive tree are rich in antioxidants, such as ligstroside isomers, hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol and caffeic acid.
Olive leaf extract is the concentrate of phytochemicals in olive leaves and contains thereby a high amount of powerful antioxidants. Olive leaf extract is traditionally used to boost the immune system. For instance, it is administered to ameliorate symptoms of the common cold, coughs, and sore throats.
Furthermore, research suggests that the polyphenols in olive leaf extract might reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, lower cholesterol levels, help with weight loss, exhibit antimicrobial effects, and act as anti-cancer agent.
For this reason, extracts from olive leaves (Olea europaea L. folium) are used as an active ingredient in product formulations of pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements. Furthermore, olive leaf extracts are used in nutritional supplements, therapeutics, cosmetics, as well as food and beverages.
Olive leaf extract is rich in polyphenols such as oleuropein, caffeic acid, hydroxytyrosol, verbascoside, rutin, quercitin etc.
Infused Olive Oil: Olive leaf extract is also used to enrich olive oils such as extra virgin olive oil. Fortified with olive leaf extract, the olive oil has a richer flavour profile and the ORAC value of the olive oil is increased. With olive leaf infused olive oils exhibit improved shelf life and higher heat stability as antioxidants scavenge free radicals and prevent rancidity.
Learn more about ultrasonically assisted olive maceration for the production of extra virgin olive oil!
The Most Important Phytochemicals in Olive Leaves
The composition of phenolic compounds in olive leaves includes oleurosides (oleuropein, verbascoside), flavones (luteolin, diosmetin, apigenin-7-glucose, luteolin-7-glucose, diosmetin-7-glucose), flavonols (rutin), flavan-3-ols (catechin) and phenolic derivatives (tyrosol, hydroxytyrosol, vanillin, vanillic acid, caffeic acid). Oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol are the most important phenolic compounds in olive leaves.
Oleuropein
Oleuropein, a non-toxic olive iridoid (a type of monoterpenoid), is a type of phenolic bitter compound. Whilst present in green olive skin, flesh, seeds, and leaves, oleuropein is the most abundantly found in olive leaves. With a content of 6–14% dry weight it is the most prominent bioactive molecule in olive leaves. Depending on olive cultivar, soil and harvest time, the oleuropein content can even rise up to 17–23% dry weight.
Hydroxytyrosol
Hydroxytyrosol is a metabolite of oleuropein. Both molecules are known for their powerful antioxidant activity, which contribute be to some of the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and disease-fighting activities of olive oil. Hydroxytyrosol has one of the highest known ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) values observed in natural antioxidants.
A full-spectrum olive leaf extract contains numerous polyphenols, antioxidants and other phytochemicals, which have synergistic effects. Ultrasonic extraction is a reliable extraction technique, which releases all phytochemicals from the olive leaves and produces thereby a highly potent broadband extract.
Ultrasonic extractor UIP2000hdT (2kW) with batch reactor
Olive Leaf Extracts Produced by Sonication
The extreme environmental conditions in the “hot spot” zone of the ultrasonic cavitation have various effects on the plant material and its extractability. This includes overcoming the selective permeability of the cell membrane, the increased exchange of substances between the cell interior and the solvent, the mechanical cell disruption and the release of intracellular substances (i.e. phyto-chemicals such as oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, gallic acid etc.). These effects result in a high yield of high quality extracts within a very short sonication time. A 400 watt ultrasonic processor such as
Hielscher’s UP400St can process a 10 litre batch of botanical slurry within 5-8 minutes. The industrial ultrasonicators process the slurry consisting of plant material and solvent in continuous flow. The medium is pumped through an ultrasonic reactor and sonicated there. On an industrial scale, a UIP4000hdT (4kW) can achieve approx. 3L/min.
Due to the high extract yield and process speed, ultrasonic extraction is particularly efficient. Therefore, sonication has been rapidly adapted by multiple extract manufacturers which produce high quality extracts, e.g. CBD, cannabinoids, vanilla, algae, ginger, and numerous other botanical extracts. Ultrasonic cavitation can achieve an extract yield of 95-99% of active compound contained in the botanicals. For instance, research showed a 99,27% extraction efficiency for the release of total phenolics from olive leaves. (Luo, 2011) The ultrasound process can be optimally adapted to the raw material and the desired extract quality by adjusting the process parameters (ultrasonic amplitude, temperature, pressure, viscosity).
The figure shows the ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography with a diode-array detector (UHPLC-DAD) chromatogram of ultrasonically extracted olive-leaf phenolics. Peaks 1 and 2 were detected at 325nm (red lines), while peak 3 (blue line) was detected at 280nm.
picture and study: Giocometti, J. et al. (2018)
Ultrasonic extraction is compatible with almost any kind of solvent. For ultrasonically-assisted olive leaf extraction, 80% aqueous ethanol has been found most efficacious. But the extraction yield for specific phytochemical compounds can be changed by choosing another solvent with different polarity (e.g. methanol).
Interested in increasing your extra virgin olive oil yields during malaxation? Then click here to learn more about ultrasonic malaxation of EVOO!
Advantages of Ultrasonic Extraction Systems
The advantages of ultrasonic extraction are the high extraction yield, the free choice of solvent (e.g. water, ethanol, water-ethanol mixture, olive oil, etc.), as well as the simple and safe operation. Due to the intensive mechanical forces of sonication, ecological and mild solvents such as water, ethanol etc. are usually sufficient to achieve an extraordinary extraction rate and yield. As a result, ultrasonic extraction shortens the extraction time and enables a reduced use of solvents or the use of milder, gentler solvents. This means that ultrasonic extraction allows for both, higher extraction rates and healthier extracts (e.g. cold water extracts). Since the process temperature can be precisely controlled during the sonication, thermal decomposition of the extracts due to excessively high temperatures as well as evaporation of the substances are avoided.
Compared to a supercritical CO₂ extractor, the acquisition costs of an ultrasonic extractor are low. The ultrasonic processors can also score points in terms of operating costs, simple, user-friendly operation and occupational safety.
- More complete extraction
- Higher yields
- Rapid process
- Compatible with any solvent
- Non-thermal process
- Easy and safe to operate
- Low maintenance
Ultrasonic Extraction for Smaller Quantities up to Industrial Production
A special feature of ultrasonic processing is the linear scalability of the extraction process. Feasibility studies and the production of smaller batches can easily be carried out with a handy ultrasonic device in an open vessel. This makes it easy to test the efficiency and quality of the ultrasonic extraction process. Any results obtained on a small scale can be fully reproduced and up-scaled. The digital control of the ultrasonic extractor and the automatic data logging of the ultrasonic parameters on an internal SD card allow precise monitoring of the process and the reproducibility of constant quality standards. Hielscher Ultrasonics’ product portfolio offers ultrasonic extractors for every scale – from 50 watts handheld devices to 16,000 watts industrial ultrasound for inline production. Thanks to Hielscher Ultrasonics’ decades of experience in ultrasonic extraction and the installation of several hundred ultrasonic extraction systems worldwide, competent and comprehensive advice is guaranteed.
The table below gives you an indication of the approximate processing capacity of our ultrasonicators:
| Batch Volume | Flow Rate | Recommended Devices |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 500mL | 10 to 200mL/min | UP100H |
| 10 to 2000mL | 20 to 400mL/min | UP200Ht, UP400St |
| 0.1 to 20L | 0.2 to 4L/min | UIP2000hdT |
| 10 to 100L | 2 to 10L/min | UIP4000hdT |
| n.a. | 10 to 100L/min | UIP16000 |
| n.a. | larger | cluster of UIP16000 |
Contact Us! / Ask Us!
What is Ultrasound and Ultrasonic Extraction?
Ultrasound is defined as sound vibrations with more than 20kHz, i.e. more than 20,000 oscillations per second. This is the area that is above the human hearing spectrum. Ultrasound thus covers a very large range of acoustic vibrations, which means that numerous different applications fall into the field of ultrasound. The best-known examples of use include imaging procedures at the doctor’s, parking assistance in cars and the non-destructive testing of materials. For the examples mentioned high-frequency, non-destructive ultrasound is used.
High-power ultrasound is defined as high-intensity, low-frequency sound waves with a frequency of approx. 20-60kHz. These energy-dense sound waves generate alternating high pressure cycles (compression) and low pressure cycles (rarefaction) in liquids. During a low pressure cycle, the high energy ultrasonic waves create small vacuum bubbles or voids in the liquid. When these bubbles reach a volume where they cannot absorb further energy, they burst during a high pressure cycle. This bubble implosion phenomenon is known as cavitation.
Cavitation creates local hot spots in the liquid or slurry, which can reach temperatures of up to 5000K and pressures of up to 2000atm. In addition, the implosion of the cavitation bubbles creates jets of liquid at speeds of up to 280 m/s. These locally occurring extreme conditions cause plant cells to burst, so that bioactive substances that are entrapped in the interior of the plant cell are released. This means, acoustic cavitation disrupts plant cells and leads to higher diffusion of intracellular molecules into the extraction solution (solvent), thereby enhancing mass transfer. Higher mass transfer means higher extraction rate. Therefore, ultrasonic probes are one of the most widely used tools to produce high-quality extracts from botanicals such as herbs, leaves, fruits and other plant materials.
Ultrasonic extraction offers various advantages such as complete extraction / very high yields, reduced extraction time, improved efficiency, compatibility with any solvent, and being a non-thermal extraction method.
UIP4000hdT sonicator for inline processing of olive leaves to produce high-quality extracts
High-power ultrasonic homogenizers from lab to pilot and industrial scale.
Frequently Asked Questions about Ultrasonic Olive Leaf Extraction
What is ultrasonic olive leaf extraction?
Ultrasonic olive leaf extraction is a process that uses high-power ultrasound to release bioactive compounds from olive leaves into a solvent. Probe-type sonicator generate acoustic cavitation, which disrupts plant cells and improves mass transfer. This helps extract valuable compounds such as oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, verbascoside, luteolin, rutin, and other olive leaf polyphenols.
Why use ultrasound to extract oleuropein from olive leaves?
Ultrasound improves the release of oleuropein by mechanically disrupting the leaf structure and increasing contact between the plant material and solvent. Compared with conventional maceration, ultrasonic extraction can reduce processing time, improve extraction efficiency, and support higher yields under controlled, mild temperature conditions.
How is hydroxytyrosol extracted?
Hydroxytyrosol is extracted from olive leaves, olive fruit, or olive mill by-products by mixing the plant material with a suitable solvent, commonly water or aqueous ethanol, and releasing the phenolic compounds from the plant cells. Ultrasonic extraction improves this process by using acoustic cavitation to break open the cells, increase mass transfer, and extract hydroxytyrosol under mild, temperature-controlled conditions. Read about the success story of a Spanish company specialized in biostimulant production using Hielscher sonicators for polyphenol extraction including hydroxytyrosol from olive pomace!
Which solvents can be used for ultrasonic olive leaf extraction?
Ultrasonic extraction is compatible with many solvents, including water, ethanol, aqueous ethanol, glycerol, and oils. For olive leaf polyphenols, water-ethanol mixtures are commonly used because they can dissolve a broad range of phenolic compounds. The best solvent depends on the target compounds, regulatory requirements, downstream processing, and final product formulation.
Can olive leaf extract be produced without high temperatures?
Yes. Ultrasonic extraction is a non-thermal extraction method when temperature is controlled during processing. Because the extraction effect is mainly caused by acoustic cavitation and mechanical shear, bioactive compounds can be released efficiently without excessive heating. This is useful for preserving heat-sensitive antioxidants and phytochemicals.
Is ultrasonic extraction suitable for industrial olive leaf extract production?
Yes. Probe-type ultrasonicators can be used for laboratory testing, pilot trials, batch production, and continuous inline extraction. Hielscher ultrasonic systems are scalable, allowing process parameters developed on a smaller unit to be transferred to larger industrial ultrasonic reactors for continuous production.
Which Hielscher sonicator is suitable for olive leaf extraction?
The right sonicator depends on batch size, solids content, solvent, target throughput, and whether the process is batch or inline. Smaller systems such as the UP200Ht or UP400St are suitable for laboratory and pilot extraction. Larger systems such as the UIP2000hdT, UIP4000hdT, and UIP16000 are designed for pilot, production, and industrial inline extraction.
What compounds can be extracted from olive leaves with ultrasound?
Ultrasonic extraction can release a broad spectrum of olive leaf phytochemicals, including oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, verbascoside, luteolin, rutin, caffeic acid, flavones, flavonols, and other phenolic compounds. The final extract composition depends on the olive cultivar, leaf quality, solvent, temperature, sonication intensity, and extraction time.
How does ultrasonic extraction compare with conventional maceration?
Conventional maceration often requires long extraction times and higher solvent volumes. Ultrasonic extraction intensifies the process by disrupting plant cells and increasing mass transfer. This can shorten extraction time, reduce solvent demand, and improve extraction yield while keeping the process easy to scale.
Can ultrasonic extraction be used for olive leaf infused olive oil?
Yes. Ultrasonic processing can be used to support the infusion of olive oil with olive leaf compounds. This can enrich olive oil with antioxidants and polyphenols, improve oxidative stability, and create value-added olive oil products with a stronger functional profile.
How do I scale an ultrasonic olive leaf extraction process?
Scale-up starts with laboratory trials to define solvent, solids ratio, amplitude, temperature, and extraction time. Once the target extract quality and yield are confirmed, the process can be transferred to pilot or industrial ultrasonic systems. Hielscher ultrasonicators support linear scale-up from small batches to high-throughput inline production.
Literature / References
- Sari, Hafize Ayla; Ekinci, Raci (2017): The effect of ultrasound application and addition of leaves in the malaxation of olive oil extraction on the olive oil yield, oxidative stability and organoleptic quality. Food Sci. Technol, Campinas, 37(3): 493-499, July-Sept. 2017.
- Domenico Cifá, Mihaela Skrt, Paola Pittia, Carla Di Mattia, Nataša Poklar Ulrih (2018): Enhanced yield of oleuropein from olive leaves using ultrasound‐assisted extraction. Food Science and Nutrition Vol. 6, Issue 4. June 2018.
- Pu-jun Xie, Li-xin Huang, Cai-hong Zhang, Feng You, Cheng-zhang Wang, Hao Zho (2015): Reduced-Pressure Boiling Extraction of Oleuropein Coupled with Ultrasonication from Olive Leaves (Olea europaea L.). Advances in Materials Science and Engineering 2015.
- Omar, Syed Haris (2010): Oleuropein in olive and its pharmacological effects. Sci Pharm. 2010;78(2):133-54.
- Omar, Syed Haris; Kerr, Philip G.; Scott, Christopher J.; Hamlin, Adam S.; Obied, Hassan K. (2017): Olive (Olea europaea L.) Biophenols: A Nutriceutical against Oxidative Stress in SH-SY5Y Cells. Molecules 2017, 22(11), 1858.