Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada As Represented by the Ministerof Agriculture and Agri-food Canada

Krista Ballantyne

David Paton

Alister D Muir

Andrew A Aubin

A process for commercial extraction of saponins from quinoa, and optionally for the formation of corresponding sapogenins. The saponin extraction process comprises contacting a saponin-containing part of a quinoa plant with an aqueous alcohol solution containing an alcohol selected from the group consisting of methanol and ethanol to form a saponin-containing solution and an extracted solid residue, removing the alcohol from the saponin-containing solution to leave a saponin-containing aqueous solution, and evaporating water from the saponin-containing aqueous solution to produce a saponin-containing product. The conversion to sapogenins involves obtaining a solution of saponins in an aqueous alcohol, adding a strong acid to the solution to hydrolyze the saponins to form corresponding sapogenins that precipitates out of the solution as a precipitate, recovering the precipitate, and decolorizing the precipitate by forming a slurry of the precipitate with a solution of an aqueous base to form a decolorized sapogenin product.

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Saskatoon, Canada

Krista Ballantyne