Kinetic model for studying the conversion and degradation of isoflavones during heating

The conversion and degradation of isoflavones during dry or moist heating at 100, 150 and 200 °C, for varied lengths of time, were kinetically studied. Results showed that, at the early stage, all the reaction rates of malonylgenistin (MG), acetylgenistin (AG), genistin (G), and genistein (Ge) increased with increasing temperature and fitted a first-order model, when the concentration changes during heating were analyzed using HPLC. For dry heating, the conversion of MG to G exhibited the highest rate constant (h−1), followed by MG to AG, AG to G, AG to Ge, G to Ge and MG to Ge. Moist heating showed the same phenomenon; however, the last three conversions were not observed. In addition, MG had the highest degradation rate, followed by G, Ge and AG during dry heating, while the reversed trend occurred for moist heating. Moist heating was more susceptible to conversion and degradation of isoflavones than dry heating. The correlation coefficients (r2) ranged from 0.664 to 0.987 for moist heating and 0.688–0.960 for dry heating. The kinetic model developed in this study can be used to predict the concentration changes of isoflavones during dry heating and moist heating.