Abstract
Banana cultivation in tropical plantation generates a large amount of waste such as leaves and stems. The importance of an effective banana waste utilization has been increasingly recognized. In order to approach this issue, we focused on the banana leaf extract, which has not been studied. The objectives of this study were to collect information of banana leaf and to propose an effective extraction procedure. Lipid, basic, acidic, neutral and phenolic fractions were extracted from fresh and dry banana leaves. The lipid fraction had a high concentration of wax. The wax yield from fresh banana leaves in the fruits-harvesting stage was high (approximately 3% on a dry basis) . There were antibacterial and antioxidative activities in the acidic and phenolic fractions of banana leaf extract. An effective extraction procedure was proposed as follows; i) to extract wax from the fresh banana leaves, ii) to dry the leaf materials, iii) to extract functional components.
