TAGRA 2025

In recent years, there has been growing interest in plants rich in natural antioxidants and bioactive compounds, with quince leaves emerging as a notable example. Due to their high phenolic and antioxidant content, quince leaf extracts serve as effective natural antioxidants, offering a sustainable alternative to synthetic antioxidants. Over the past decade, emerging extraction technologies such as microwave, cold plasma, and ultrasound have gained significant attention in food science for their efficiency and environmental benefits. This study investigated the impact of cold plasma and microwave pretreatments on the chemical composition and antioxidant properties of hydroalcoholic extracts from quince leaves. The results demonstrated that a cold plasma and microwave pretreatments significantly increased (P<0.05) total chlorophyll content, whereas extending microwave pretreatment to 6 minutes led to a notable reduction compared to the control. Additionally, cold plasma and microwave pretreatments, significantly decreased moisture content. Ash content also declined significantly after 6 minutes of microwave and 15 minutes of cold plasma pretreatments, compared to the control. Both of cold plasma and microwave pretreatments, significantly enhanced (P<0.05) total phenolic content and antioxidant activity (especially pretreatment of cold plasma at 10 minutes was effective than microwave). However, color indices (L, a, b*) decreased significantly compared to the control due to cold plasma, but due to microwave pretreatment, there was no significant difference compared to the control. Based on the results of this research, cold plasma can be a better and more efficient method to extract and replace conventional thermal methods than the microwave pretreatment.