Antioxidant Activity of Saururus chinensis Pretreated by Mechanochemical Technology - Nitrite Scavenging and Electron Donating Ability -

Saururus chinensis is used as a raw material of an anti-rheumatic, poultice, sedative and stomachic. The tea of dried Saururus chinensis leaves has a function of relaxing pains in back and breast and of treating stomach ailments. The plant has the functions of anti-inflammatory, depurative, diuretic, febrifuge and refrigerant. The extraction of functional material is carried out by methanol and ethanol solvents. Mechanochemical grinding is applied as a pretreatment process before extraction to enhance the extraction efficiency by increasing the surface area of the materials while changing the chemical properties of the materials. Extraction of functional materials from the Saururus chinensis after grinding as a pretreatment using the mechanochemical technology was accomplished in this study to investigate the effect of grinding on the antioxidant activities of the extract. Saururus chinensis was ground by the planetary ball mill and the morphology was analyzed by SEM. Mechanochemical pretreatment increased the yields of functional materials from 5.9 g to 6.4, 7.0, and 8.1 g after grinding of 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours, respectively. Nitrite scavenging ability increased from 53.0-71.0% to 61.0-79.0% for the methanol extraction in the solution of pH 1.2. Also, Electron donating abilities were increased from 7.90-33.51% to 11.97-38.51% for the methanol extraction. The extract concentration for the half inhibition of DPPH radicals was reduced from $278{\mu}g/mL$ in the original sample to $263{\mu}g/mL$ in the sample after grinding for the methanol extraction.