Brönsted acidic ionic liquids as novel catalysts for the hydrolyzation of soybean isoflavone glycosides

In this work, the hydrolyzation of soybean isoflavone glycosides using Brönsted acidic ionic liquids (ILs) as novel catalysts was studied. The experimental results show that those ILs have good catalytic activities to the hydrolyzation reactions, and their activities are mainly dependent on the types of their anions. The SO3H-functional ILs with HSO4- as anion have the best catalytic activities which are similar to that of sulfuric acid, with the conversion of glycitin more than 90%.