THE EFFECT OF DRYING PUNICA GRANATUM LEGRELLIAE’S

FLOWERS ON ITS BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS

El Ferouali H.1; Zehhar N.2; Benkhalti F.2; Bouamama H.2; Doubabi S.1; Abdenouri N.1
1
LSET, Cadi AYYAD University, Marrakech 4000 Morocco
2
Biotechnologie de la Valorisation et la Protection des Agro-ressources Chimie Bioorganique et
Macromoléculaire, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakech 4000 Morocco

E-mail: hichamelferouali@gmail.com

Abstract: The aim of this work is to study the drying effect of Punica granatum legrelliae’s
flowers (Punicacee family) at different conditions on the quality and the preservation of its
bioactive molecules which has an antioxidant property. These flowers are traditional
antidiabetic medicines (Li, Qi, and Huang, 2008) [1] and are strongly astringent (Huang et al.,
2005a) [2]. They are also used to treat diarrhea (Zhang et al., 2010) [3], and the passive
bleeding.
Comparisons in terms of biochemical parameters were performed on fresh samples, dried
simples in ambient air and dried simples in a forced convection solar dryer at three
temperatures namely 40 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C. The studied biochemical parameters are the
total polyphenol content, polyphenol-oxidase and peroxidase activities and antioxidant
activity.
As a result, it is found that the drying of Punica granatum legrelliae’s flowers in forced
convection at a temperature of 40 ° C is the best drying method since that it retained the
highest content of polyphenols (154.6946 meq gallic acid / g DM). Moreover, the dried
sample at this temperature records the highest antioxidant activity value with an IC 50 of
1190.54 μg / g DM.

Keywords: Punica granatum legrelliae, solar convective drying, polyphenols, antioxidant

activity

References:
[1] Li, Y. H., Qi, Y. H., & Huang, T. H. W. (2008). Pomegranate flower: a unique traditional antidiabetic
medicine with dual PPAR-a/c activator properties. Diabetes Obesity and Metabolism, 10, 10–17.
[2] Huang, T. H. W., Peng, G., Kota, B. P., Li, G. Q., Yamahara, J., Roufogalis, B. D., et al. (2005a).
Pomegranate flower improves cardiac lipid metabolism in a diabetic rat model: role of lowering circulating
lipids. British Journal of Pharmacology, 145, 767–774.
[3] Zhang .L, Fu Q & Zhang Y. (2010) Composition of anthocyanins in pomegranate flowers and their
antioxidant activity. Food Chemistry 127 : 1444–1449.