“…The antioxidant ability of flavonols (3-hydroxy flavone derivatives) has been well established in both non-aqueous lipid systems (Richardson et al, 1947;Kurth and Chan, 1951 ;Heimann et al, 1953;Simpson and Uri, 1956;Mehta and Seshadri, 1959) and in aqueous-lipid systems (Simpson and Uri, 1956;Kelly and Watts, 1957). 0 FLAVONE Antioxidant activity of flavonols is apparently due to their ability to act as free radical acceptors (Heimann et al, 1953 ;Simpson and Uri, 1956;Lea, 1958;Mehta and Seshadri, 1959;Crawford et al, 1961) and/ or to complex metal ions (Lewis and Watts, 1958;Kelley and Watts, 1957 ;Mehta and Seshadri, 1959). Heimann and Reiff (1953) studied flavone derivatives as antioxidants r 27 I in ethyl linoleate and concluded that the following structural characteristics were correlated with antioxidant activity : 1) the 2-3 olefin group and the ketone in position 4 of the pyrone ring; 2) 3-hydroxylation; 3) ortho hydroxylation of the B ring ; 4) meta hydroxylation of the chromone system (i.e., 5,7-dihydroxy).…”