Total phenolic contents and antioxidant activity of corn tassel extracts

Ground corn tassels, a by-product of corn, were used as a source of phenolic compounds. Water, ethanol, methanol, acetone, hexane, chloroform, butanol, petroleum ether and methylene chloride were evaluated as different polarity solvents to extract these phenolic compounds. Ethanol exhibited the highest extraction ability for such phenolic compounds, followed by methanol and water, where the total phenols were 0.1575%, 0.1125% and 0.0737%, respectively. Antioxidant activity of corn tassels ranged from 83.0% to 85.2%, 69.9% to 83.7%, 69.8% to 80.4%, 22.2% to 49.1% and 14.8% to 19.3% radical scavenging activity (% RSA) for ethanol, methanol, acetone, butanol and water extracts, respectively. The ethanolic extract of the corn tassels was successfully utilised to retard the oxidation of sunflower oil and the obtained induction period values were comparable to those of tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ).