Study on DPPH and Superoxide Free Radical Scavenging Capacity of Total Flavonoids from Hawthorn Leaves

Take hawthorn fallen leaves in autumn as raw material to extract total flavonoids by 70% ethanol as solvent.Rutin and vitamin C were used as reference substances and DPPH and superoxide free radical scavenging capacities of total flavonoids from hawthorn leaves were studied by spectrophotometric method.The results showed that the total flavonoids have some scavenging effects on both DPPH and superoxide free radical.For DPPH free radical,the scavenging rate improves with the addition of the total flavonoids increasing.The scavenging rate was 50.29% when the addition was up to 2mg.The superoxide free radical scavenging rate got to maximum value 27.36% when the addition was 1.2mg.The maximum values of rutin were 63.83% and 32.55% respectively.Furthermore,those of vitamin C were 69.93% and 99.04%.It is found by comparison that free radical scavenging capacities of the total flavonoids had a little lower than those of rutin,however,significantly inferior to vitamin C.