A comparison study on microwave-assisted extraction of Potentilla anserina L. polysaccharides with conventional method: Molecule weight and antioxidant activities evaluation

The conventional extraction methods for polysaccharides were time-consuming, laborious and energy-consuming. Microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) technique was employed for the extraction of Potentilla anserina polysaccharides (PAP(MAE)), Which is a traditional Chinese functional food. The extracting parameters of PAPMAE were optimized by Box-Behnken design. The optimum conditions were ratio of water to raw material 14.5:1, microwave power 369W, extraction temperature 63.3 degrees C and extraction time 76.8 min with an enhanced yield of 13.33%. In microwave heating process, a sharp decrease in M-w was detected in SEC-LLS Measurement. A d(f) value of 3.03 indicated that PAPMAE exhibited a compact hard sphere conformation in an aqueous solution. Furthermore, it showed stronger antioxidant activities compared with hot water extraction by evaluating in superoxide radical (O-center dot(2)-), hydroxyl radical ((OH)-O-center dot), I.]diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical, reducing power and metal chelating assay. The data obtained clearly showed that the molecular weights played a more important role in antioxidant activities. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.