Effects of Mechanochemical Pretreatment on the Extraction of Functional Materials from Houttuynia cordata

Abstract

-Houttuynia cordata is used as a raw material of oriental medicine to acquire antioxidant and anti cancer effect and to cure a heart disease. Mechanochemical technology not only reduces the size of the object but also changes the chemical properties of the object. Extraction of functional materials from the Houttuynia cordata after grinding as a pretreatment using the mechanochemical technology was conducted in this study to investigate the effect of grinding on the yields and antioxidant activities of the extract. Houttuynia cordata was ground by the planetary ball mill and the morphology was analyzed by SEM. Yields of functional materials were increased from 6.2 g in the sample without grinding to 7.0, 7.8, 8.8 g after grinding of 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours, respectively. Nitrite scavenging abilities were increased from 57-77% to 69-86% as a result of mechanochemical pretreatment. Also, DPPH scavenging abilities for the methanol extraction were increased from 10.01-40.29% to 11.01-49.29% as a result of mechanochemical grinding.