Purification and Drying of Pigment from Blackberry Fruits

After being extracted from blackberry fruits with the mixture of 1% HCl and 80% ethanol (1:99, V/V), the crude pigment was purified with macroporous adsorption resin, and then dried to powder by different processes. Moreover, we conducted the scale-up production experiment of blackberry pigment under optimized conditions. When blackberry pigment in citric acid- Na2HPO 3 system at pH 3.00 was adsorbed by resin LS-300B for 5 h, and then desorbed by 70% ethanol, the best purification was achieved. Compared to vacuum and spray drying processes, freeze drying exhibited the best effect. Results of the scale-up production experiment showed that yield and color value of the blackberry pigment were 0.58% and 45.21, respectively; total anthocyanin content in the blackberry pigment was 12954.987 mg/100 g, and recovery of anthocyanin was 79.47%.