Maize bran is an abundant cereal byproduct and a promising source of ferulated arabinoxylan biopolymers (FAXs). In this study, alkaline hydrolysis was optimized for FAX extraction from maize bran using a design-of-experiments approach evaluating alkali concentration, extraction time, and temperature. Purified FAXs were characterized for their chemical composition, phenolic and ferulic acid content, antioxidant activity, microstructure, and functional properties using GC–MS, HPLC, FT-IR, SEM, and standard antioxidant and functional assays. The FAX yields ranged from 14.7 to 18.9%, producing arabinose- and xylose-rich polymers (A/X ratio 0.68–0.74) with a high proportion of bound ferulic acid. Antioxidant assays (FRAP, ABTS, and DPPH) showed that alkaline-extracted and bound phenolic fractions exhibited substantially higher antioxidant capacity (p ≤ 0.05) than free phenolics, highlighting the importance of phenolic association with the arabinoxylan backbone. The FAX 3 extract also showed high activity in both the alkaline-extracted phenolic compounds (905.0 μg/g TE) and fraction II (286.5 μg/g TE), indicating that specific structural features may contribute to its bioactivity. In addition, FAXs demonstrated high water-holding capacity and favorable emulsifying properties. These results support the recovery of maize bran-derived FAXs as functional, antioxidant-active ingredients for food and related applications.
Hussain et al. (Thu,) studied this question.