Method for purifying lutein esters

Abstract

The invention discloses a method for purifying lutein esters and in particular relates to a method for extracting high-purity lutein esters from marigold ointment. The method is characterized by dissolving the marigold ointment into ethyl acetate at 25-80 DEG C and stirring the mixture for 1-6h; adding absolute ethyl alcohol to the liquid obtained through heat filtration and stirring the mixture at 20-70 DEG C for 0.5-5.0h to form uniform solution and then filtering the solution after cooling the solution at minus 5-30 DEG C for 5-20h; and then washing filter cakes with lower alcohol and drying the solid under vacuum to remove the solvent residues, thus obtaining the required high-purity lutein esters. The content of the lutein esters is 70-80%. The method is high in product yield, simple and convenient to operate and easy to realize large-scale industrial production.

Description

Technical field

[0001] The present invention relates to a method for purifying lutein esters. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for extracting high-purity lutein esters from marigold ointment. Background technique

[0002] So far, there have been many reports on the extraction of lutein esters from marigold oleoresin. For example, US 4,048,203 uses hot alkanol containing no more than 4 carbon atoms to dissolve marigold oleoresin. The lutein ester is precipitated by cooling the solution, filtered to remove the alkanol and then vacuum dried, but the lutein obtained by this method The ester content is only 51%, which does not meet the high content requirement. In US6,191,293, the marigold flower is extracted with a hydrocarbon solvent and then with alcohol precipitation to obtain an extract, but the purity of the lutein ester obtained by this method varies greatly due to the quality of the raw materials, and it is difficult to control in industrial produc...

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