Some unique and interesting characteristics of highly polymeric tannins are well known, such as having a strong ability to bind with proteins, alkaloids, and heavy metals. In a series of experiments designed to determine industrial uses for kaki-tannin, a typical condensed tannin from persimmon fruit, a simple procedure for kaki-tannin purification has been investigated in our laboratory.
This paper describes several properties of tannin in Kakishibu, a special and astringent persimmon juice, that are altered during heat-browning at 80°C. A procedure for purification of the browned tannin from Kakishibu using a High Porous Polymer (HP) resin column was developed.
1. Heating at 80°C caused a remarkable browning of two types of aqueous tannin solutions with ca. 0.6% tannin concentrations, Kakishibu from cv. Tamura and K
2HPO
4-purified tannin from cv. Hiratanenashi immature persimmon fruits. The extent of browning was followed qualitatively by measuring absorbance at 420nm and 480nm.
2. A F/V ratio, being a ratio of optical densities is both Folin-Ciocalteu and sulfuric acid- vanillin methods, of both tannin solutions increased linearly after incubation for 8h at 80°C, accompanied by browning and an increase of absorbance at 420nm and 480nm.
3. Only 55% and 20% of the tannin in the Kakishibu and the K
2HPO
4-purified tannin solutions, respectively, adsorbed to HP resin before heating at 80°C. However, after heating for 8h the percentage of adsorption increased to 96% and 72%, respectively. The majority of adsorbed tannins was eluted with 40% aqueous methanol.
4. In contrast to unheated tannins or those heated for 8h and 24h, tannins heated for 48h or 72h showed a distinctly lower capacity of hemoglobin-precipitation.
5. The browned tannin heated excessively (48h and 72h at 80°C) became less soluble in water after drying with a freeze-drying method.
The present data has shown that moderately heat-browned tannin is purified easily from Kakishibu using HP resin column chromatography. The tannin obtained thus has lost a bad, fermented smell, still has a high capacity of de-proteinizing, became more soluble in water, and therefore, may be more useful in some industrial fields.
View full abstract