A comparative study of the antioxidant scavenging activity of green tea, black tea and coffee extracts: a kinetic approach.

The antioxidant activities of three beverages, coffee, black tea and green tea, along with their major components, were investigated in terms of their reaction with the stable radical 2,2'-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). We used a kinetic approach in parallel with quantification methods based on a fixed end-point to determine the scavenging efficiency of compounds abundant in these beverages during their reaction with DPPH using a stopped-flow spectrophotometer-based method. Ascorbic acid, (+)-catechin, (-)-epigallocatechin, tannic acid, and caffeic acid were selected as model antioxidants to study in coffee, black tea and green tea. We applied a second-order model to demonstrate similarities in the kinetics behavior of beverages and related compounds. Our findings showed the slopes k2(')((mol/L)(-1)s(-1)) and k2max(')((mol/L)(1)s(-1)) exhibited similar and correlated values; we suggest the variation in k2(') as a function of time is more informative about antioxidant properties than reaction with DPPH alone. We also used IC100 to test the reliability of the relative stoichiometry using a new comparative parameter "n", which was calculated as: n=c0DPPHIC100 (mol/L(mol/L)(-1), (mol/L)mlmg(-1) or molg(-1)).