Enzyme‐assisted solvent extraction for extraction of blueberry anthocyanins and separation using resin adsorption combined with extraction technologies

Summary Blueberry anthocyanins are the major active ingredients of blueberry with a variety of biological activities. The scale extraction and separation of blueberry anthocyanins could contribute to their application in drugs, cosmetics, food additives and so on. In this study, using combined technologies to high-efficient extraction and separation of blueberry anthocyanins was developed. Under the optimum extraction conditions of first 0.3% cellulose and pectinase with 2:1 (m/m) at 37 °C for 4 h and then 1% citric acid-acidified 75% (v/v) ethanol at 37 °C for 6 h, as high as 25% extraction rate of blueberry anthocyanins was obtained. By ethyl acetate extraction in triplicate and then D101 resin column chromatography, up to 49.6% purity of blueberry anthocyanins was obtained based on UV–vis analysis. The scale-up extraction and separation of blueberry anthocyanins were carried out. This method was simple but effective, and easy scalable at industrial purpose.