Abstract

Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, vitamins, and minerals, enhancing their health benefits. Extracting bioactive compounds from blueberries is vital for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and food industries. Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) is an efficient and eco-friendly method for isolating phenolic compounds. This study employed response surface methodology (RSM) to optimize the UAE conditions, specifically focusing on solvent composition, solvent volume, and extraction time, to maximize total polyphenol (TP) and total anthocyanin (TA) content. Blueberry samples were extracted using acidified methanol as the primary solvent in an ultrasonic bath. Optimal extraction conditions were determined using a quadratic Box-Behnken design and analyzed through ANOVA. Results showed that the solvent composition had the most significant effect on TP and TA extraction, followed by solvent volume, while extraction time showed the least influence. The optimized conditions were determined to be methanol solution 99:1 v/v (12.5 mL) and an extraction time of 97.7 min for TP, while for TA, the optimal conditions were 17.9 mL of the same methanol solution with an extraction time of 100.9 min. Obtained with these conditions were 408.2 +/- 3.9 mg GAE/100 g FW of TP and 127.4 +/- 1.7 mg C3GE/100 g FW of TA. These findings highlight the effectiveness of UAE combined with RSM for the efficient extraction of bioactive compounds from blueberries, providing a framework for industrial-scale applications by an efficient process.