Propolis has been used as medicine, cosmetic and beverage additives since many years ago (Wang, Sun et al. 2014). This material is one of the most valuable products of the hive, which has not been studied enough in Iran.
Propolis has many biological properties, including anti-cancer, antibacterial, anti-virus, antioxidant and anti-parasite (Biscaia and Ferreira 2009).
Propolis composition depends on a variety of factors, including geographical conditions, harvest season and plant species in the region (Pellati, Prencipe et al. 2013). However, a general composition of 50% resin, 30% wax and 10% essential oil and 5% other materials for propolis were defined (Pujirahayu, Ritonga et al. 2014). Today, people have become more motivated to supplement.
Propolis has attracted a lot of attention because it contains plenty of flavonoids (Luo, Zou et al. 2011). The propolis has compact and hard wall structure that makes digestion very difficult to release the bioactive compounds. For this reason, the extraction process is performed on the propolis to release the active compounds. The most important materials in the propolis are phenolic and flavonoids compounds, which are in the resin category. The purpose of this study was to measure the total amount of flavonoids in propolis of northern Iran and compare them with different extraction methods. Methanol and carbamate ionic liquid were used as extraction solvent; the maceration, Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE), and Sequential UAE-Maceration extraction methods were conducted for comparison of the extraction efficiency. The total amount of flavonoids measured by applying the Spectrophotometry methods. The dry weight of the extracts varied between 0.32 g and 0.76 g. The lowest dry weight of the extract was obtained using UAE method with methanol solvent. The highest dry weight of the extract is related to the maceration method whit carbamate ionic liquid solvent. Also, the extraction yields were determined based on the dry weight of the extract, which was varied between % 1.36 to % 9.9. The highest extraction yield was obtained using Ultrasonic-assisted extraction and methanol as a solvent and lowest extraction yields were related to a sequential UAE-Maceration method using carbamate ionic liquid solvent. Therefore, methanol was more suitable than carbamate ionic liquid solvent for the extraction of flavonoid from propolis. It can be concluded that Ultrasonic-assisted extraction using carbamate ionic liquid as a solvent has low efficiency, while methanol solvent showed the good results. The summary of information is presented in Table1