Preliminary Study on the Process Conditions for Preparing Ferulic Acid from Wheat Bran

[Objective] The aim was to study the process condition of preparing the ferulic acid by wheat bran through enzyme method and alkali extraction method.[Method] The wheat bran was pretreated by using enzyme to remove the starch,protein and sugar material.The ferulic acid was extracted by using sodium hydroxide and the proportion of bran and lye was 120.The optimum process conditions for treating the dry wheat bran by enzyme method and extracting the ferulic acid by lye were confirmed resp.through orthogonal test.[Result] The optimum process condition for pretreating the dry wheat bran with enzyme method was that the enzyme dosage of high-temperature resistant α-amylase,protease and glucoamylase were 2 000,1 398 and 50 000 U/g bran resp.The optimum process condition for extracting the ferulic acid from the enzyme-pretreated bran by using alkali method was that the sodium hydroxide concn.was 1.5%,the extraction temperature was 85 ℃,the extraction time was 4 h.Adding 0.5% KBH4 into the sodium hydroxide could effectively increase the retained dose of ferulic acid in the extract liquid and the yield of ferulic acid was up to 9.414%-10.937%.[Conclusion] This research provided the scientific basis for increasing the utilization ratio and added value of wheat bran.