Abstract
A potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-mutagenic agent; 4-vinyl-2,6-dimethoxyphenol (canolol) was obtained from canola meal in a significant yield via alkaline (NaOH)/enzymatic (ferulic acid esterase) hydrolysis followed by microwave-assisted decarboxylation. The hydrolysis was carried out either through using canola meal directly as a substrate or by using the 70 % aqueous methanolic extract filtrates. The hydrolyzed extracts underwent RP-HPLC analysis which showed that 81.0 and 94.8 % of the total phenolics were hydrolyzed to sinapic acid after the alkaline hydrolysis of the meal and the methanolic extracts, respectively. The enzymatic hydrolysis showed lower conversion rates (49.5 and 58.3 %). The hydrolyzed extracts were consequently decarboxylated using 8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene under microwave irradiation at different conditions. The HPLC profiling of decarboxylated extracts showed that using microwave at 300 W of microwave power for 12 min brought the highest sinapic acid conversion to canolol (58.3 %) yielding 4.2 mg canolol from each gram of canola meal suggesting that the process could be commercially economical.