ABSTRACT
Phytochemicals are bioactive compounds present in different parts of plants (leaves, flowers, seeds, barks, roots, and pulps). The growing popularity of phytochemicals is because of their therapeutic importance in the control and treatment of diverse infections or diseases. Owing to the diverse bioactive molecules present in plants, this chapter details the various extraction methods, techniques involved in isolation, and those for the identification of bioactive compounds. The extraction methods include cold extraction method, solvent extraction method, serial exhaustive method, supercritical fluid extraction, microwave-assisted extraction and so forth. Similarly, the techniques involved in the isolation of phytochemicals include the thin-layer 248chromatography, column chromatography, gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, and so forth. This chapter also discusses the various spectroscopic techniques involved in the identification of isolated compounds such as ultraviolet spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and mass spectroscopy.
