JPS6363754A - Method of separating carotene - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To separate such recover carotene from a palm leaf which has been heretofore discarded, by extracting the palm leaf with an org. solvent. CONSTITUTION:A palm leaf is extracted with an org. solvent or a mixture of org. solvents. Examples of the org. solvent are alcohols, ethers, ketones, carboxylic esters, hydrocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons, etc.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a method for separating carotene, and more particularly to a method for separating carotene from palm leaves.

[Conventional technology and problems]

Carotene is a yellow-green pigment found in kapocha, carrots, etc., and is used in the food additive field as a coloring agent for soft drinks, margarine, etc., as a feed additive for cattle, etc., and mixed in aquaculture feed for sea bream, crab, shrimp, etc. Its use is rapidly increasing in the field of feed additives, such as coloring, and in the field of pharmaceuticals, where it is said to have a lung cancer suppressive effect by inhibiting the proliferation of abnormal cells.

Therefore, various methods of obtaining such useful carotene have been studied, and for example, a method of extracting carotene from palm oil is known.

On the other hand, in palm plantations such as Malaysia, when collecting palm fruits to obtain palm oil, the leaves are always cut down and the cut leaves are thrown away as is, and the quantity is enormous. Therefore, effective utilization of such palm leaves is strongly desired.

[Means for solving problems]

In view of the above-mentioned current situation, the present inventors have conducted intensive research and found that palm leaves, which were conventionally discarded, also contain a relatively large amount of carotene. They discovered a method to separate carotene and completed the present invention.

That is, the present invention relates to a method for separating carotene, which comprises extracting palm leaves using a V:1 solvent alone or in combination.

In the present invention, organic solvents used for extracting palm leaves include alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol; ethers such as ethyl ether and isopropyl ether; ketones such as acetone and methyl ethyl ketone; methyl formate; Carboxylic acid esters such as ethyl acetate, hydrocarbons such as petroleum ether, hexane, benzene, toluene, chloroform, methylene chloride,
Examples include halogenated hydrocarbons such as tricrene, and these can be used alone or in a mixture of two or more.

The starting material of the present invention is a palm leaf, for example, a leaf cut off at the time of harvesting the fruit can be used. The structure of a palm leaf is divided into a lattice part and a leaf left part, but the leaflet is the most advantageous part because it has a high carotene content, and leaves can be fully utilized even 2 to 3 days after being felled. can.

In the present invention, when extracting palm leaves, it is preferable to chip them. The chipping process is carried out in order to smoothly perform drying, pressing, and extraction to increase extraction efficiency, and is performed using a commercially available cutter etc. It is preferable to cut to a size of several tens of AT or less.

Fresh palm leaves that have been made into chips can be extracted as they are with a solvent that is azeotropic with water, such as toluene, while continuously distilling off the water, or with a solvent that easily mixes with water, such as methanol or acetone alone, or these two. It is also possible to extract with a mixed solvent with ethers, hydrocarbons, etc. that can be mixed with the ether, but it is preferable to perform pretreatment such as drying and pressing before extraction.

The drying process is performed to prevent changes in the active ingredients contained in the fresh leaves over time, rotting of the leaves, and fermentation, improve the workability of pressing, and increase the yield of extraction. Drying conditions are not particularly limited, and drying can be carried out using a commercially available dryer capable of mass processing.

The pressing process is carried out to crush the dried palm leaves to destroy their cell membranes, make it easier to distill oils and fats from the cells, and increase extraction efficiency and speed. In particular, it is preferable to employ this pressing process when extracting with a continuous extractor. The compression is performed using a commercially available compression roll machine or the like.

Regarding the extract of the present invention, carotene can be concentrated by using low-temperature fractionation, adsorption treatment using silica, alumina, synthetic adsorbents, etc., molecular distillation, etc. alone or in combination. For example, when the extract in the present invention is subjected to low-temperature fractionation in the presence of an organic solvent, a carotene concentrate is obtained in the soluble portion. Alternatively, the extract in the present invention is dissolved in a non-polar organic solvent, passed through a column packed with alumina or silica, and then treated with alcohol, ether, ketone, ester, hydrocarbon, aromatic compound, organic chloride, etc. alone. Alternatively, a carotene concentrate can be obtained by flowing the mixture to elute the carotene fraction and removing the solvent.

〔Example〕

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in more detail with reference to Examples, but the present invention is not limited to these Examples.

Example 1 120 kg of leaflets obtained by separating the axes of palm leaves by shaving were chipped using a mount cutter to obtain cut leaves (water content 1t61.2%) in which the leaf size was 20Il111 or less in 95% or more. . The cut leaves are placed in a rotary dryer, hot air (710°C) is passed through, and the exhaust temperature is 2.
It took 44 minutes to dry under the conditions of 40℃, 140rpo+ rotation, and 51kg of dried leaves with a product temperature of 93℃ (moisture content 8.65%)
) was obtained.

Next, this dried leaf was put into a compression roll machine (width 20011111, diameter 400 mm) with a roll rotation speed of 42 Orpm, and the work load was 120 kg/hour, the pressure was 4 tons/d, and the gap was 20.
The flattening operation was performed under the conditions of μ. Toluene 5001 after compression
The extraction was repeated twice with stirring under reflux for 3 hours, and the solvent was distilled off under reduced pressure to obtain 2.78 kg of extract.

2.78 kg of the obtained extract was dissolved in 51 kg of n-hexane and purified using a glass column filled with 75 kg of silica gel. n-hexane 250! ! After washing with
The carotene fraction was eluted with a 3% ether-0-hexane solution, and the solvent was distilled off to obtain 341 g of a concentrate. The total carotene content of the concentrate is 3.69%, of which β-carotene content is 2.
．． It was 16%. The total carotene recovery rate was 92.9%.

1.51 g of acetone was added to 300 g of the concentrate to dissolve it, and the mixture was left in a refrigerator overnight, the precipitated crystals were filtered off, and the solvent of the filtrate was distilled off to obtain 162 g of a concentrate.

The total carotene concentration of this product was 6.58%, and the carotene recovery rate was 96.3%.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A method for separating carotene, which comprises extracting palm leaves using an organic solvent alone or a mixture.