Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research

Vol. 62, September 2003, pp 916-920

Preparation of Inulin from Chicory Roots

Anil K Gupta', Navdeep Kaur and Narinder Kaur
Department of Biochemistry & Chemistry, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141 004

Received: 18 December 2002; accepted: 12 May 2003

Inulin has immense applications in health and nutrition as well as in food industries. Inulin is isolated from chicory
roots by differential precipitation with ethanol (0-20, 20-40 and 40-60 per cent) from the aqueous extract of sun-dried roots,
by melting the frozen chicory root extract and by removing the oligo-fructosachharides from chicory roots with 20 per cent
ethanol. Different inulin preparations so obtained are compared with some of the commercial inulin preparations. Sun-dried
roots are as good as the fresh roots for isolation of inulin hut roots dried in an oven (80-90"C) have lower inulin content due to
hydrolysis of tructans during drying. For better inulin yield. chicory roots should be extracted with water having pll adjusted
to 7. pH of water on acidic side results in lower inulin recovery.

Keywords: Inulin. Chicory roots, Oligo-fructosachharidcs

Introduction hence can replace fat in table spreads. A detailed

review on uses of inulin in health and nutrition is
Inulin and oligo-fructose (fructans with fructose
given by Kaur and Gupta'.
polymerization from 2 to 10) are officially recognized
as natural food ingredients in most European Consumer is health conscious and demands
countries and have a self-affirmed GRAS (generally foods, which have low fat and low calories with
regarded as safe) status in the US. Inulin and oligo- additional health benefits. In present day society the
fructose are prebiotics, are considered as functional leading health concerns are heart disease, cancer, high
foods as they alter physiological and biochemical cholesterol, obesity, osteoporosis, and diabetes. Inulin
processes of the body for better health and prevent and oligofructose are widely used in functional foods
risk of many diseases. Inulin has been reported to throughout the world for their health promoting
. 1 1
stimulate the immune system of body, decrease properties" .
pathogenic bacteria in intestine, relieve constipation, Jerusalem artichoke iHelianthus tubcrosuss and
reduce risk of atherosclerosis and modulates chicory (Cichorium intvbuss are the two species
hormonal level and hence blood glucose level currently used by the industry to produce inulin and
especially in diabetics. It also lowers blood urea and belong to compositae, the latter being so far the most
uric acid levels, decreases the risk of osteoporosis by commonly used source".
increasing absorption of minerals, especially calcium
The roots of chicory store fructans as a reserve
and above all inulin is reported to decrease the
material, which constitutes 15-20 per cent by fresh
incidence of colon cancer. Inulin and oligo-fructose
weight (70 to 80 per cent of dry weight) of roar'. The
have wide applications in various types of foods like,
yield of chicory root on dry weight basis has been
confectionery, fruit preparations, milk deserts, yogurt,
reported to be 11-16 tlha which can give 8-12 tlha of
fresh cheese, baked goods, chocolates, ice-cream, and
inulin if there is no loss during extraction and
sauces. Inulin is less soluble in water and forms
purification",
micro-crystals when sheared in water and milk and
In spite of so many applications of inulin in
health and nutrition, beside its applications in food
• Corresponding author industry, no work has been done on the isolation of
E-mail: [Link] inulin from inulin storing plants in India. The present
 GUPTA et at.: PREPARATION OF IN ULIN FROM C HICORY ROOTS 917

research has been undertaken to develop a cost- Separation oj Inulin and Oligo-Jructosaccharide
effecti ve way of isolating inulin from chicory roots. Fraction by Using 20 Per Cent Ethanol and Aqueous
Extraction
Experimental Procedure
The chi cory roots were extracted with 20 per
Cichorium intybus (Chicory) variety Kalpa cent ethanol at 25°C for 3 h with intermittent shaking.
No. 1, was sown 'in the third week of October and The process was repeated three-times. From the
roots were harvested starting in the last week of remaining roots, more fruct ans we re extracted with
March to first ~eek of April. Roots were cleaned with boiling water. Both these fractions were subj ected to
tap water and processed in three ways after peeling. In biochemical anal ys is and descending chromatography
some experiments, fructans were extracted from the on Whatman chromatography paper IMM in Butanol:
fres h roots, in others roots were cut with a knife into acetic acid : water (4: I :5) The fru ctans were identifi ed,
small pieces and dried under sun between 30-35°C. using fructose specific urea orthophos phori c acid
Some of the roots were dri ed in hot air oven at 80- spray reagent
90°C. The roots dried in oven were browni sh in
colour, whereas sun dri ed roots were of li ght yellow All experiments were conducted independentl y
off-white colour. three times and three values for eac h parameter were
obtained. Student 's t test was applied for determining
Extraction oj Fructans Jo r Isolating InuLin the significance of difference between two treatments.
Sun-dried and oven-dried roots were crushed Results and Discussion
manually in an iron pestl e and mortar and passed
through a sieve ( 100 /lcm) to have chicory powder of Comparison oj Oven-dried, Sun-dried and Fresh
uniform size. Fres h roots ( 100 g) were cru shed in a Chicory Roots Jo r Inulin Extraction
blender. Five volumes of water were added to crushed From the compos iti on of fres h, oven dri ed and
chi cory roots. Fructans were solubilized by keeping sun dri ed chi cory roots, it was observed th at durin g
the contents in a boiling water bath for 20 min and th e drying in an oven between 80 to 90 °C, some of inulin
contents were passed through a doubl e layered mu slin is hydrolyzed, leading to hi gher fru ctose content.
cloth . The ex tracti on procedure was repeated 3-4 However, sun dried roots had almost the same fru ctan
times and all the filtrates were pooled for isolating content as 1n fresh chicory roots. Sun-dried roots can ,
inulin . therefore, be used for extracti on and isolati on of
Quantitative Extraction oj Sugars inulin because fresh roots are ava ilable onl y in March
and April (Table I).
The total sugars were extracted with hot water,
as described earli er5 . Reducin g sugars were estimated Effect oJ Temperature on. Precipitation oj [Link] by
by the procedure, described by Ne lson?, whereas Ethano L
fru ctan was determined after destroying the free Gupta et a f. 10 have show n th at inulin can be
fru ctose with NaOH and estimating fru ctan by prec ipitated from the chicory root extract with
s
resorc inol and HCl . f' th anol. The prec ipitati on of inulin from the aqueous
Differential Precipitation with Ethano L extract of sun-dried chi cory root with eth anol at -15 ,

From the fructan extract obtained from chicory

roots, vari ous grades of inulin were obtained by Table 1- A compari son of carbohyd rate co mposition of oven-
dried, sun-dri ed and fresh chico ry roots
precipitati on with 20, 20-40 and 40-60 per cent
ethanol. After separatin g inulin prec ipitated with 20 Roots Per cent carbo hydrate (Dry wei ght bas is)
per cent eth anol by centrifu gati on, the ethanol Fru ctan Fructose
concentrati on in the supernatant was raised fro m 20 to
40 per cent. The inulin thu s obtained was separated by Fres h 72 .4 ± 2.3" 1.4 ± 0.2d
centri fugation. Another inulin fraction was obtained Oven-d ried 58. 5 ± 0.81'0 12.4 ± 0.8'
by raisin g the ethanol concentrati on in the supernatant Sun -dri ed 70.8 ± 1.0" 1.8 ± 0.2d
from 40 to 60 per cent. The preci pitates were was hed
Values are mean ±..SD of data of three experiments.
twice with respecti ve aqueous ethanol solvents and a> b; p < 0.0 1 and c > d; p < 0.0 1 (stu dent' s t tes t)
then dri ed at 45 °C.
 918 J SCI INO RES VOL 62 SEPTEMBER 2003

5 and 25°C after 12 h showed that the low however 40-60 per cent ethanol preciprtates showed
temperature did not result in increased inulin the presence of some fructo-oligosaccharides. High
precipitation (Table 2). Therefore, inulin can be reducing sugar content precipitates obtained by 40-60
precipitated at 25°C. Data also showed that per cent ethanol (Table 4) also reflected this.
supernatant obtained after precipitation of chicory
Inulin precipitated by 20 per cent ethanol was
aqueous root extract with 50 per cent ethanol is a rich
compared with commercially available inulin
source of frucro-oligosaccharides.
samples. The inulin obtained from Kingherb Inter-
Effect afpH of the Extraction Medium Oil the national China contained almost all the fructo-oligo-
Isolation of Inulin saccharides found in chicory root extract, whereas
In this experiment, inulin was extracted by inulin of Sigma USA was free from any fructo
oligosaccharides (Figure J).
adjusting the pH of water to 6, 7, or 9. The data
showed that maximum inulin is extracted at pH 7.
Table 4 - Effect of differential ethanol fractionation on inulin
Therefore, it is better to check the pH of water
precipitation from 100 g of sun-dried roots
whereas slight increase of pH on alkaline side did not
Per cent Inulin, g Per cent composition of isolated inulin
affect the inulin recovery, but small decrease in pH ethanol
from 7 to 6 could lead to almost 35 per cent decline in Fructan Reducing sugar

inulin recovery (Table 3). 0-20 20.5 ± 1.2 93.6 ± 0.8 3.4 ± 0.2
20-40 IS.6±1.I 96.0 ±..I. I 3.7 ± 0.1
Effect of Using Different Concentrations of Ethanol
40-60 12. I ± 1.4 90.3 ± 0.7 5.3 ± 0.2
011 Inulin Precipitation

Values are mean ± SO of data of three experiments.

Maximum inulin was precipitated with 20 per
cent ethanol. Inulin obtained by 20 per cent and 20-40
per cent ethanol hardly contained any oligo-
saccharides and these inulin preparations did not
move from its origin during paper chromatography,

Table 2 - Effect of temperature on inulin precipitation and

supernatant composition by SO per cent ethanol from the aque-
ous extract obtained from 100 g of sun-dried chicory roots
Precipitation Dry weight Supernatant
temperature, of inulin, g
"C Fructan, g Reducing
sugar, g
~;.icrose
-15 21,6 ±OA 4H±0.7 4.8 ± 0.1
5 2L7 ± 0.5 45.9 ± 0.6 4.7 ± 0.2
25 no±o.s 48.2± 0.6 4.5 ± 0.2

Inulin was determined on gravimetric basis by drying the

precipitates at 4S"C
Values are mean ±..SO of data of three experiments

Table 3 - Effect of pH of water on the precipitation of inulin by

SO per cent ethanol from the aqueous extract obtained from 100 g
of chicory roots
pH of water Inulin, g
Figure 1- Comparison of inulin isolated from chicory roots with
6.0 21.6 ± 0.7h other commercially available inulins by descending paper
33.4 ± 0.7" partition chromatography. Sugars with Rf less than sucrose are
7.0
frucro-oligosaccharides. (I) Aqueous extract of chicory roots; (2)
9.0 32.0 ± OS' Inulin from Kingherb International China; (3) Inulin from Sigma
Chemical company, USA; (4) Inulin isolated from sun-dried roots
Values are mean ± SO of data' of three experiments.
with 20 per cent ethanol, and (5), Standard sugars fructose +
a> b; p < 0.01 (student's t test)
sucrose
 GUPTA et at.: PR EPA RATION OF INULIN FROM C HICORY ROOTS 919

Inulin and o ligo-fructosaccharide fractions have

been successfull y separated from chicory roots by
extracting fructo-oligosaccharides with 20 per cent
ethanol from the chicory root powder, whereas the Inulin
residue contained mainl y inulin . The compositional
analysis showed that 20 per cent ethanol fraction had
a significantly hi gher reducing sugars as compared to
water extract containing mainly inulin (Table 5) .

Precipitation of Inulin at Low Temperature

On melting the frozen aqueous extract of chicory
roots, kept at about -I ODC for about 3 d at 25 DC, fine
inulin precIpItates settle at the bottom. The
comparison of sun-dried and oven-dried roots showed
that higher amount of inulin was present in sun-dried
roots. However the supernatant left after iso lation of
inulin of oven-dried roots had higher mass then that of
sun-dri ed roots because of hi gher amount of fructo-
oligosaccharides formed due to hydrolys is of inulin
D
during drying at 80-90 C (Table 6).
By using thi s procedure, inulin was also isolated
from fresh roots. It was observed that preparations
D
obtained by precipitating at _IO C from sun-dried and
fresh roots were comparable with respect to their
Figure 2 - Compariso n of inulin isolated from fresh chicory
Table 5 - Separation of sun-dried chi cory roots (100 g) into roots and sun -d ri ed roots th different inulins obtained from
fructo-o li gosaccharide fraction by using 20 per cent ethanol Sensus, The Netherlands. Sugars with Rf less th an sucrose are
and inulin fraction by ext racting sugars fro m left over roots fruc to oli gosaccharides. ( I ) Inulin frutafit R TEX from Sensus, The
R
with water Netherlands ; (2) Inulin frutafit IQ from Sensus, The Netherl ands;
(3) Inulin frutafit R HO from Sensus, The Netherlands ; (4) inuli n
Experiment Yield Fructan , Red ucin g from fresh ch icory roots , and (5) inulin fro m sun-d ried roots
100 g per cent sugar,
roots per cent
fructo-oligosaccharide composition, as observed by
Fructo- 43 .2 ± 1.0 81. 1±0.8 12.9 ± 0.6" paper chromatography. Both these preparations were
oli gosaccharides
from 20 per cent
better than the two inulin preparation s of Sensus-
ethanol extract Netherlands (Fructafi t HD & IQ), however the third
preparation of inulin (Fructafit TEX) had low levels
Inulin from the 42.5 ± 0.5 87.4 ± 0.6 4.3 ± 0.3 h of oligosaccharides (Figure 2). Bubnik et al. II have
resid ue left after
20 pe r cent observed th at when unrefined chicory root extract was
eth anol isolation vacuum thickened at 55-60 DC to 43 per cent (W/W),
crystalli zation of inulin occurred following coo lin g
Values arc mean ± SO of data of three experiments.
a> b; p < 0.0 1 (student ' s t test) for 2 d. Berghofer et al. 12 have a lso reported th at
coo lin g of concentrated aqueous chicory root extract
Table 6 - Isolation of inulin by melt ing the fro zen aqueou s over a peri od of 3 to 4 d to 4°C resulted in inulin
ex tract prepared from 100 g of chicory roo ts prec ipitati on.
Roots Inulin , Fructo-
g oli gosaccharides Conclusions
Oven -dried 18.1 ± 1.2h 56. 1 ± 1.6
A cost-effective procedure for iso lating inulin
form chi co ry roots has been developed. On keeping
Sun-dried 35.5 ± 0.4" 36.0 ± 0.8
an aqueous ex tract of chicory roots at - I 0 DC for 3 d
Values are mean ± SO of data of three experiments. and me lting the frozen ex tract at 25 °C, fin e inulin
a > b; p < 0.0 I (s tu dent ' s t test)
precipitates were separated .
920 J SC I IND RES VOL 62 SEPTEMBER 2003

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