Abstract: In this study, a new process was developed for the preparation of anthocyanidins from blueberries using combination of liquid-liquid extraction and macroporous resin adsorption chromatography. Crude blueberry anthocyanins were obtained using ethyl acetate as the extraction solvent and anthocyanins were isolated from the crude extract by column chromatography on Amberlite XAD-7HP. After acid hydrolysis and concentration of the anthocyanins, the removal of acid and sugar was carried out by solid-phase extraction with C18, yielding 0.2% pure anthocyanidin mixture. The mixture was further fractionated into four high purity anthocyanidin monomers by semi-preparative high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), including delphinidin (98.2% purity), cyanidin (96.3%), petunidin (92.6%) and malvidin (90.5%). The developed procedures are expected to provide technical and theoretical support for the preparative-scale separation of anthocyanidin monomers and the evaluation of their functional activity.

Key words: anthocyanin aglycones, Amberlite XAD-7HP resin, acid hydrolysis, solid-phase extraction, high performance liquid chromatography