Extraction of Antioxidants from Aronia mitschurinii Juice Using Macroporous Resins

Antioxidants play a vital role in the human body by defending cells from damage caused by free radicals, highly reactive products of oxidation reactions. A major source of antioxidants is fruits and vegetables. Aronia mitschurinii, a breed created at the end of the 19th century by crossbreeding wild Aronia melanocarpa and Russian Mountain Ash, produces fruits with one of the highest known content of hydrophilic antioxidants. Aronia fruit contains a potent blend of anthocyanins, polyphenols, and flavonoids. The most popular way of consuming the fruit is through juicing. Yet, due to very high concentrations of tannins in the juice, very few food-related applications have been developed. Resin extraction of antioxidants provides an alternative for utilizing valuable phytochemicals from crops for applications in the food industry as nutraceutical supplements and more. To increase the market value of the plant, it is important to determine what resins can extract the optimum concentration of antioxidants from aronia juice, pulp, and whole berries. We have shown that macroporous resins such as Amberlite XAD 1180N, Amberlite XAD 7HP, Amberlite XAD 761, and Amberlite FPX66, which have been reported to be effective in extracting the anthocyanins and polyphenols from other fruit juices, skins of red grapes, and the wild breed, are also effective for use in juice, pulp, and whole fruits of Aronia mitchurinii. However, the extremely high content of antioxidants presents a challenge to obtaining high recovery; a notable change in the juice/resin ratio is required to obtain a higher recovery value. Our results showed that Amberlite FPX66 was the best at extracting anthocyanins, polyphenols, and flavonoids from aronia juice. A separate experiment conducted to determine how to optimize the efficiency of FPX66 extraction revealed that increasing the resin/juice ratio increased the percent recovery of anthocyanins from aronia juice. Moreover, we have compared recovery between juice, pulp, and whole aronia berries and batch versus column extraction.