Extraction and isolation of cannabinoids

Abstract

Cannabis sativa L. is one of the most important medicinal plants that belongs to the family Cannabaceae. C. sativa is a herbaceous flowering plant that is indigenous to eastern Asia, but it is now cultivated worldwide due to the importance of its active constituents known as cannabinoids. Due to the growing interest in these compounds, various methods for their extraction and isolation were proposed. In this chapter, we will have an overview about the conventional and nonconventional methods for extraction of cannabinoids both from plant material and from biological samples for forensic purposes. Also we will review the methods for isolation of such compounds from different types of extracts as well as the modern methods for metabolomics and chemometric tools for analysis of cannabinoids.