An effective and green method for the extraction and purification of aglycone isoflavones from soybean

Abstract

In this paper, an effective and green strategy was developed to obtain aglycone isoflavones from soybean through the extraction, hydrolysis, and purification steps. Firstly, a novel ethanol-alkaline extraction method was designed and optimized. The high extraction yield (94.34%) of isoflavones was achieved under the optimal extraction conditions of pH 9.0, 70°C, 60 min, ethanol concentration of 65%, and 1:15 of the solid to liquid ratio. Then, the cellulase (GC-220) was used instead of traditional β-glucosidase to hydrolyze the glycoside isoflavones into aglycone isoflavones which gave an excellent conversion of 95%. Finally, the crude aglycone isoflavones have been purified by an environmental-friendly procedure comprised of ethanol precipitation, ethyl acetate extraction, and water rinse. The final amount of aglycone isoflavones obtained was 1.279 mg for every gram of defatted soybean by this strategy, and the final recovery, and purity of aglycone isoflavones could achieve 80.38 and 87.21%, respectively.