Evaluation of Iso Method in Saffron Qualification

Abstract

The factors which are very important in saffron are crocin (color), picrocrocin (flavor) and safranal (aroma). Higher amount of these compounds in saffron provide higher quality of saffron. ISO (the international organization for standardization) has set a classification of saffron based on minimum requirements of each quality. According to ISO picrocrocin, safranal and crocin are expressed as direct reading of the absorbance of 1 % aqueous solution of dried saffron at 257, 330 and 440 nm respectively. There was some doubt about the accuracy of the safranal result using ISO method. Therefore it was decided to evaluate the amounts of safranal and crocin in saffron according to ISO method and compare the results with the amounts of these compounds when using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In HPLC method in an isocratic run a 30 cm ODS column were used. Mobile phase was mixture of acetonitrile and water (76 % v/v). A UV detector at wavelengths of 308nm for safranal and 440 nm for crocin was also employed. Results indicated that standard crocin had significant absorption at 308nm. We concluded that present ISO method is not an accurate method to measure the amount of safranal in saffron. Therefore it is suggested to evaluate this method and meanwhile using a HPLC method to evaluate the amount of safranal and crocin in saffron samples.

Indirect Electrochemical Analysis of Crocin in Phytochemical Sample

“…On performing amperometric titration between crocin and cysteine, the end point indicated a crocin to cysteine ratio of 1:2.The above amperometric titration procedure was used to determine the concentration of crocin in a sample of saffron. The concentration of crocin in saffron was found to be 2.13%.This is in good agreement with the HPLC analysis as determined by earlier workers [11][12][13]16 . The purity of isolated crocin was found to be 96.81%.Some experiments were carried out on recovery and the percentage recovery varied from 98.56 to 100.31%.…”

“…It means crocin must be a good anti depressant. Chemically it is (β, β 'digentiobiosyl 8, Crocin has been determined earlier in Crocus sativus 11,12 and Gardenia Jasmenoides Ellis 4,13 using some analytical techniques. Though, the use of polarographic and voltammetric methods have been widely done for the analysis of organic compounds in samples of natural origin 14,15 but, crocin being polarographically inactive could not be analyzed using this electrochemical method.…”

Simultaneous Extraction and Rapid HPLC Based Quantification of Crocin and Safranal in Saffron (Crocus Sativus L.)

“…We have observed that the good amount of crocin and safranal obtained in the extract of methanol and water gradient (50:50). However, on the basis of concentration used for methanol and water, the performed chromatographic method conducted a good separation and resolution of the sample components, better than other proposed gradient conditions reported previously [11,[17][18].…”

Determination of Crocin Content and Volatile Components in Different Qualities of Iranian Saffron

“…For this purpose, the absorbance of 1% aqueous solution of dried saffron samples was measured at 257 and 440 nm wavelength. Even though this method is also suggested to determine aroma strength, it was not preferred since it was stated in other studies that presented safranal in aqueous solution could interfere with absorbance of crocetin esters (mainly cis-isomers) at suggested wavelength of 330 nm in ISO 3632 (2011) spectrophotometric measurement technique (García-Rodríguez et al, 2017;Hadizadeh et al, 2006;Carmona et al, 2006b). (Heidarbeigi et al, 2015).…”