Antioxidant activity of commercial food grade tannins exemplified in a wine model

ABSTRACT

Although commercial tannins are widely used in foods and beverages, an improved understanding of the structure and composition of vegetable tannins is needed to promote the exploitation of agri-food by-products and waste and their valorisation in more sustainable industrial applications. This study aims to characterise the phytochemical composition and antioxidant activity of 13 food grade tannins using multiple analytical approaches, including spectrophotometry and HPLC-ECD to determine the amount of targeted polyphenolic compounds. Moreover, the antioxidant activity of tannins was assessed in terms of radical scavenging activity (DPPH• assay), reducing power (FRAP assay), and redox properties (cyclic voltammetry, CV). A statistical univariate and multivariate correlation analysis was performed on 17 parameters including tannin content (range: 0.71–1.62 mM), gallic acid, (+)-catechin, syringic acid and (‒)-epicatechin. The compositional profile of tannins was related to their chemical moiety, antioxidant activity and the botanical origin of the extracts. In particular, the CV signal at 500 mV was highly correlated with DPPH• value due to the catechol ring of flavonoids and trigalloyl moieties of gallic acid–based compounds. Practical examples of tannins application in winemaking are discussed.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Antioxidant activity
• commercial tannins
• food additives
• plant polyphenols

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Enologica Vason, HTS enologia, Laffort and AEB group, for having provided the free samples of commercial tannins. Authors AR, GPP and AV also acknowledge the School of Chemical Sciences (University of Auckland) where they were guest scientists. AR is supported by a PhD fellowship from the University of Bologna (Italy).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Bologna, Italy.