The aim of this work was to investigate the microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) kinetics of polyphenolic compounds from organic peppermint leaves. The phytochemicals of peppermint (Mentha piperita L.) are increasingly used in food technology due to their numerous biological activities. The processing of various plant materials by MAE and the production of high-quality extracts is becoming increasingly important. Therefore, the influence of microwave irradiation power (90, 180, 360, 600, and 800 W) on total extraction yield (Y), total polyphenols yield (TP), and flavonoid yield (TF) were investigated. Common empirical models (first-order, Peleg's hyperbolic, Elovich's logarithmic, and power-law model) were applied to the extraction process. The first-order kinetics model provided the best agreement with the experimental results in terms of statistical parameters (SSer, R2, and AARD). Therefore, the influences of irradiation power on the adjustable model parameters (k and Ceq) were investigated. It was found that irradiation power exerted a significant influence on k, while its influence on the asymptotic value of the response was negligible. The highest experimentally determined k (2.28 min-1) was obtained at an irradiation power of 600 W, while the optimal irradiation power determined by the maximum fitting curve determination predicted the highest k (2.36 min-1) at 665 W.
Keywords: Mentha piperita L.; kinetics; microwave-assisted extraction (MAE); modeling; polyphenols.