Preparation And Determination Of Red Pigment In Myrica Rubra

The Myrica tree(Myrica rubra Sieb.et Zucc.)is native in China,which mainly planted in the south areas of the Yangtze River including Zhejiang,Jiangsu,Yunnan,Guangxi and other provinces.Their fruits(bayberry)are delicious known as "agate of fruit",with multiple functions such as digestion,dehumidification,relieving summer heat,relieving cough,preventing diarrhea and cholera,etc.These fruits are rich in anthocyans,organic acids,carbohydrates,vitamins,proteins and other nutrients,which contribute to functions such as antioxidant,anti-inflammatory,antibacterial,enhancing immunity,etc.In 2015,the red pigment extracted from the bayberry(Yang-Mei Hong,YMH)has been approved as edible additive,with the main component within it to be cyanidin-3-glucoside(1).In addition,the extract from the Myrica tree bark or leaf has been applied in market,with one of its functional nutrient to be myricetrin(2).In this paper,quality analysis of the bayberry and YMH was developed.A HPLC method was applied to determinate two main ingredients 1 and 2,simultaneously.The chromatographic separation was performed on an Agilent 1260 system.A Cosmosil 5C18 –PAQ column(250 mm × 4.6 mm,5 μm)was applied,with a gradient elution of acetonitrile and 0.1% acetic acid solution,at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min,and detected at both 520 nm(for cyanidin-3-glucoside,1)and 360 nm(for myricetrin,2)using diode array detector.As a result,the two compounds were separated with satisfaction,with linearity ranges between 20.08-200.8 ?g/mL(r = 0.9996,1)and 3.984-39.84 ?g/mL(r = 0.9995,2).In addition,a UV-Vis spectrophotometer method was also developed to determine the color value of the bayberry.The bayberry was cultivated in June and July,accompany with typical hot and rainy weather in South China.It opted to deterioration during the process of collection and transportation.The shelf life of the bayberry at room temperature was only 2~3 days,which greatly limited the production and further processing of the fresh fruits.Based on the work experiences,a new process of enriched bayberry powder was designed to obtain its original nutrients using modern processing techniques.Three main technological steps was applied in this process:(1)the fresh raw material of bayberry was treated at low temperature with oxygen starvation;(2)the liquid bayberry juice was transformed into powder by spray drying technology;(3)package processing was undertaken with nitrogen filling.