Studies on curcumin’s stability towards hydrolytic degradation in alkaline solutions presented varying results, possibly due to differences in the media used [60, 62, 72, 73]. Tønnesen et al. observed that the degradation of curcumin followed secondorder kinetics in methanol/aqueous system with either phosphate (pH 6–9) or carbonate (pH 9–10) as buffers and it was concluded that the degradative reactions of curcumin proceeded at a much slower rate in acidic conditions than at higher pH [73]. In a methanol/aqueous system, ferulic acid and feruloylmethane were the initial degradation products, followed by hydrolysis of feruloylmethane into vanillin and acetone (Fig. 3)
[73]. In addition, a brownishyellow like compound was also present, believed to be a product from the condensation of feruloylmethane [73].