Determination of antioxidant compounds from the seeds of Pangium edule by solid liquid extraction method

Abstract

The market demand of the tocopherols in the antioxidant product was relatively high as tocopherols were proved to be the most powerful antioxidant compared others. However, the global supply of tocopherols from the natural sources (edible oil distillate) has not meet the demand of public. Tocopherols is the most powerful antioxidant among the vitamin E group. In this study, determination of tocopherols content in the seeds of Pangium edule using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is reported. The extraction of antioxidant was done by using the solid liquid extraction method of saponification with 70% of sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Process extraction was done by saponification of samples with methanolic and ethanolic solution of ascorbic acid and extraction of the tocopherol with the mixture of acetronitrile and methanol at 50:50 v/v ratio. Furthermore, the presence of the tocopherols in the seeds was verified by HPLC-UV and the DPPH detection was used to determine the antioxidant activity. The tocopherols levels determined in the seeds by HPLC with UV in the ethanolic solution of ascorbic acid (2.3118 µg/ml) are reported to be higher than those in the methanolic solution (1.6699 µg/ml). However, the antioxidant activity detected in the methanolic acid is higher indicating that there are many others antioxidants contained in the seeds besides tocopherols. As a conclusion, from this study, it is obvious that solid liquid extraction method offers an acceptable performance for the determination of antioxidant from the seeds of Pangium edule. The potential of Pangium edule for antioxidant resource was successfully demonstrated by HPLC and DPPH analysis.