Release of Ferulic Acid from Wheat Bran by Ultrasonic Assisted Alkaline Hydrolysis

Ferulic acid, a compound showing antioxidant ability, is found in abundance in wheat bran. Its release depends mainly on the breaking of its ester linkage to other constitutive elements of the cell wall, such as arabinoxylans, ligin, cellulose and so on. Response surface methodology and orthogonal design were respectively used to evaluate the effects of NaOH concentration, alkali/ethanol ratio, extraction temperature and pH on ferulic acid extraction yield from wheat bran. The released ferulic acid concentration was determinated by HPLC method Experiments carried out under the predicted optimal conditions，with NaOH concentration of 5.76%, pH of 3.2, alkali/ethanol ratio of 1.39:1, temperature of 59.75 ℃, the actual extraction yield in agreement with the expected yield, with 4.45mg.g^-1 extraction rate of ferulic acid in wheat bran . And the results confirm the potential of wheat bran valorization in the field of natural antioxidant extraction, possibly viable in an industrial scheme.