Both Cold and Hot extraction methods are required to be utilized considering the type of material or part o the herb like Flowers, Leaves, Stems, Stem bark, Roots, Seeds etc. Secondly what Phyto constituents required to be extracted.
The better conditions are the maceration at room temperature. It will extract nearly all compounds and the chances of degradation of the sensitive compounds will be minimum. How ever it depends also on the choice of your interest, that which type of compounds you are interested.
I agree with Dr. Murad. Cold extraction is the first choice. But in instances when the phytochemical of interest fails to extract, you may conduct a hot extraction maybe by serial exhaustive extraction.
In our previous work; “Effect of plant extracts and an essential oil on the control of brown spot disease, tillering, number of panicles and yield increase in rice” (File attached below)
We found that; when using Cymbopogon citratus as plant material, hot water maceration has a significant high antifungal activity against Alternaria padwickii and Bipolaris oryzae compared to cold macération
When we used Callistemon citrinus as plant material in the same expérimental condition it was rather the cold water maceration that exhibited the high singnificant antifungal activity against the same fungi
Thus the phytochemicals preference of the cold or the hot maceration depend on the botanical species.
Also the experimental conditions of maceration (extraction at 50°C, 100°C…..) ; the extraction time may influence phytochemicals content; the phyochemical constituents of each type of extract could interact between each other (synergism) to increase or decrease a specific biollogical activity.
Finily The more prefered between the cold and hot water maceration In extraction of phytochemicals should not be claim till an expériment is carried out for the evaluation of a specific biological activity of these extract.
Both Cold and Hot extraction methods are required to be utilized considering the type of material or part o the herb like Flowers, Leaves, Stems, Stem bark, Roots, Seeds etc. Secondly what Phyto constituents required to be extracted.
Sometimes hot extraction may lead to lose or labile secondary metabolites though it gives good yield so it advisable to extract using cold extraction method especially when you have no idea the exact class of secondary metabolites present in your plant sample
Extraction of phytochemicals with hot solvents can lead to decomposition or alteration of the chemical structure of the natural compounds. Generally it is preferred to extract with room temperature solvents for longer times. But the efficiency of extraction may depend from the chemical structure of natural products in the plant and from polarity of the solvent. Therefore I reccomend to proceed by sequential exctraction at r.t. with organic solvents with increasing polarty (usually exane, chloroform, and methanol or ethanol) in order to fractionate at least polar from less polar or unpolar compounds. Then repeat the treatment at 50 °C, you must check for chemical composition difference between the so obtained exctracts.
I agree with Mr.Murad Ali Khan, If in maceration process there is doubt of extraction of all constituents,then I think the use of slow percolation process with various solvents based on polarity at room temperature can extract almost all constituents.