Chemical Advances on Cochineal in China
Since its introduction to mainland China in the year 2000, cochineal, an insect origin from Latin America, has been developed comprehensively for varieties such as red dye, wax and other chemical substances. Preparation of carminic acid or carmine, the anthroquinone based compound and the main component of cochineal dye, was studied widely on the extraction, separation, purification, drying and analysis. Besides soaking directly in water as a traditional way, microwave, ultrasonic wave and other physical aids were taken to accelerate the extraction. Some kinds of adsorptive resins and enzymes were selected to separate carmine from impurities such as protein and sugar, so that it was available to get a highly purified product. To avoid oxidation of extracted cochineal dye, diferent drying wayes were considerated by vacuum freeze drying, spray drying and other quick drying. On different requirements, spectrophotometry and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were adopted for determinations of some constituents in cochineal or the extracted cochineal dye. Cochineal wax was another natural insect wax with good physical characteristics in whiteness, melting point, acid value and saponification value. It was also reported that a little content of chitin could be achieved from some cochineal species by usual extraction and separation. Looking forward, protein and other attached constituents in cochineal were quite plentiful to be deeply and multiply utilized, and a better system for industrialization of cochineal in China was expected to be built up effectively.
cochineal extract dye wax
Hua ZHENG Hong ZHANG Yuan-heng GUO Li-yi MA Jin GAN Hong ZHAO
Research Institute of Resources Insects, Chinese Academy of Forestry Kunming 650224
国际会议
南京
英文
713-717
2010-10-22（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）