Study On The Synthesis And Functionality Of Glycerol Ferulate

Ferulic acid has definite pharmacological activity and is an accepted antioxidant agent and anti-cancer material. Ferulic acid could regulate the physiological function, and enhance the activity of the free-radical-scavenging enzyme. Moreover, ferulic acid could be applied in exercise-food with the excellent anti-oxidant and function-accelerating properties. Ferulic acid has been approved as food additives in some countries with the safe and non-toxic properties. In this study, glycerol ferulate was synthesized to improve the hydrophilicity of the ferulic acid and widen its application in the fields of food and cosmetics.With the p-toluene sulfonic acid as the catalytic agent, the process conditions of glycerol ferulate produced by ferulic and glycerol were studied and optimized by single-factor and orthogonal experiments. The results showed that the optimal process conditions were: temperature: 80℃, glycerol/ferulic acid ratio: 30, concentration of catalyzer: 8%, reaction time: 10 h. With the optimal process conditions, the transformation rate of ferulic acid and the content of glycerol ferulate were 93.25% and 88.12%, respectively.The kinetics of the reaction was studied. The obtained reaction equation was: Rg=K[Cferulic acid] 1.802, where K was a constant. The substrate glycerol was excessive during the synthesis process, thus the effect of glycerol concentration on the esterification rate was not obvious and the glycerol concentration was integrated into the constant in the reaction equation. The total reaction order at the initial phase of the reaction was 1.802.The separation process of glycerol ferulate by D312 resin column and C18 column was studied and the white and acicular crystals of glycerol ferulate were obtained. The results of size-integration of liquid chromatography showed the purity of the glycerol ferulate was 97.65%.The qualitative analysis of glycerol ferulate crystal by Fourier-Infrared spectrometer and nuclear magnetic resonance instrument was carried out. The results indicated that the obtained white and acicular crystals were actually the glycerol ferulate and mainly sn-1 monoacylglycerol.The scavenge capacity of glycerol ferulate on free radicals was studied and the results indicated that, glycerol ferulate could scavenge the free radicals of DPPH·,·OH and O2-·to some extent and had a stronger scavenging ability than BHT. At low concentration(<0.6mg/mL), the scavenging ability of glycerol ferulate was lower than that of ferulic acid, while at high concentrations, the scavenging ability of glycerol ferulate was stronger than that of ferulic acid .