Thermal degradation of 17-decarboxy-betanin monitored by LC-MS

A thermal stability study on 17-decarboxy-betanin depending on physicochemical process conditions was conducted. 17-decarboxy-betanin is one of betacyanin, natural origin pigments applied in food and pharmaceutical industry instead of artificial colorants. There is a need for searching of new non-toxic natural food components and this is a reason of increasing interest of betacyanins. As most derivatives of betanin obtained by decarboxylation, 17-decarboxy-betanin tends to degrade in the presence of some factors such as increased temperature or other conditions of the reaction environment [1]. This subject was investigated in this study because the stability of the pigments is still a significant issue limiting their wide application. The degradation of 17-decarboxy-betanin during heating in selected solutions: water as well as aqueous solutions of ethanol 50% (v/v), methanol 50% (v/v) and acetonitrile 50% (v/v) at pH in the range 3-8 was tested. As UV-Vis spectra indicate, 17-decarboxy-betanin tends to degrade mostly at pH 3, notwithstanding a type of solution. The products of degradation were identified by LC-DAD-ESI-MS. As a result of incubation at 85°C in different solutions, various mono-, bi- and tridecarboxylated as well as dehydrogenated derivatives were obtained. The dominant product of 17-de-carboxy-betanin degradation is 2,15,17-tridecarboxy-2,3-dehydro-betanin