The phytochemical analysis

The increase in average life has made humanity aware of diseases that have not existed in the past centuries (i.e., cancer). It has now become an urgency to give life to the years after giving years to the life. Prevention in medicine is a priority. The pharmaceutical and food industries have come together to formulate products (nutraceutical supplements) that contain nutrients and phytochemicals, to help keep the human body in a state of well-being. The phytochemicals are secondary metabolites produced by plants to respond to biotic (i.e., worms, nematodes, etc.) and abiotic (i.e., UV radiation, lack of water, excessive soil salinity) stress capable of helping humans in their struggle to maintain a state of well-being. The demand for extracts and phytochemical molecules for broader and safer applications grew. High-quality products with higher yields and low processing costs are a need for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and nutraceutical industries. The extraction of phytochemicals depends on plant parts, tissue matrices type, cell structure, and the compounds' physicochemical properties (i.e., chemical structure, free or bound form, particle size, moisture content). This work resumes the advanced techniques used for the extraction (i.e., ultrasound waves, microwaves, supercritical fluids, pressurized liquids, enzymes, electric field), the isolation (i.e., high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography), and the characterization (i.e., mass and NMR spectroscopies) of the phytochemical compounds. The procedures employed to validate the new analytical methods were also discussed.