Extracting antioxidants from blueberries

Blueberries are widely consumed for their flavor and complex array of antioxidants and other beneficial phytochemicals. Central to studies on blueberries is the ability to extract antioxidants. For appropriate analysis, the extracted compounds must represent those contained in the blueberry without bias or loss of information. Given the complex array of phytochemicals present, extracting these chemicals from blueberries is a complex task and is the focus of much debate in the current literature. While many studies have examined the best extraction technique to maximize the concentration of extracted antioxidants, there remains no systematic study on the effect of extraction conditions and technique on the variety of antioxidants extracted from the blueberry samples. The current study fills this gap by applying High-Performance Liquid Chromatography combined with novel forms of post-column derivatization and the commonly used CUPRAC assay to examine the range and concentration of antioxidants extracted. We have found that solvent choice plays a large role in determining the variety of compounds extracted, with acidification, extraction time, and temperature having minimal effect, and acetone has been shown to provide extraction of the greatest range and highest concentration of compounds.