Abstract
Saffron, which has many kinds of biological activities, has been widely used in medicine, cosmetics, food, and other fields of health promotion industries. Crocins are the main component of saffron (Crocus sativus L.). At present, most of the extraction methods for crocins require long time or special instruments to complete the process and some of them are not suitable for industrial production at present. In this article, homogenate extraction technology which is a convenient and efficient method was developed for crocins extraction from saffron. Firstly, the influences of extraction voltage, extraction time, ethanol concentration, and temperature on crocins yield were studied by single factor experiments; and then response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize levels of four variables based on the result of single factor experiments. Results showed that the optimum extraction process conditions for crocins were as follows: extraction voltage, 110 V; ethanol concentration, 70%; extraction temperature, 57°C; and extraction time, 40 s. Based on these conditions, the extraction yield of crocins can reach 22.76% which is higher than ultrasonic extraction method. Therefore, homogenate extraction is an effective way to extract crocins from saffron with higher extraction yield and shorter extraction time.
Highlights
Saffron, which is the red stigma of Crocus sativus L., is widely cultivated in Iran, India, Pakistan, Greece, Italy, China, Japan, Azerbaijan, and so on [1]
According to the results of single factor experiments, response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken design (BBD) was applied to identify the best extraction conditions for crocins by using four variables, the extraction voltage (X1), extraction time (X2), ethanol concentration (X3), and extraction temperature (X4), respectively
We use crocin-1 as a standard substance to determine the content of crocins and decide which extraction process is better, because all the crocins such as trans-4-GG, trans-3-Gg, trans-2-gg, and crocetin have similar UV absorption wavelength
Summary
Saffron, which is the red stigma of Crocus sativus L., is widely cultivated in Iran, India, Pakistan, Greece, Italy, China, Japan, Azerbaijan, and so on [1]. Extraction methods for crocins in addition to the chromatographic techniques [10] are including ultrasonic-assisted extraction [11,12,13], molecularly imprinted polymer solid-phase extraction [14], high-voltage pulsed electric field-assisted extraction [15], solid-liquid dynamic extraction [13], and supercritical fluid extraction [16] These procedures give good extraction yields, but most of them require long time or special instruments to complete the process and some of them are not suitable for industrial production at present. It was applied to extract crocins from saffron and optimized by response surface method for the first time
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