Abstract
The bioactive materials in brown seaweeds hold great interest for developing new drugs and healthy foods. The oil content in brown seaweeds (Saccharina japonica and Sargassum horneri) was extracted by using environmentally friendly supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) with ethanol as a co-solvent in a semi-batch flow extraction process and compared the results with a conventional extraction process using hexane, ethanol, and acetone mixed with methanol (1:1, v/v). The SC-CO2 method was used at a temperature of 45 °C and pressure of 250 bar. The flow rate of CO2 (27 g/min) was constant for the entire extraction period of 2 h. The obtained oil from the brown seaweeds was analyzed to determine their valuable compounds such as fatty acids, phenolic compounds, fucoxanthin and biological properties including antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antihypertension effects. The amounts of fucoxanthin extracted from the SC-CO2 oils of S. japonica and S. horneri were 0.41 ± 0.05 and 0.77 ± 0.07 mg/g, respectively. High antihypertensive activity was detected when using mixed acetone and methanol, whereas the phenolic content and antioxidant property were higher in the oil extracted by SC-CO2. The acetone–methanol mix extracts exhibited better antimicrobial activities than those obtained by other means. Thus, the SC-CO2 extraction process appears to be a good method for obtaining valuable compounds from both brown seaweeds, and showed stronger biological activity than that obtained by the conventional extraction process.
Highlights
Algae can be divided into two groups including macro-algae, or seaweeds and micro-algae
The efficiencies of oil extracted by using three different solvents including hexane, ethanol, and acetone mixed with methanol (1:1, v/v) was checked by examining their different polarities
S. japonica and S. horneri were 1.19 ± 0.21 and 1.29 ± 0.05 g/100 g dry weight (DW) when acetone mixed with methanol was used as the solvent, 1.24 ± 0.06 and 1.42 ± 0.08 g/100 g DW when hexane was used, and 1.22 ± 0.12 and 1.36 ± 0.14 g/100 g DW when ethanol was used, respectively
Summary
Algae can be divided into two groups including macro-algae, or seaweeds and micro-algae. Seaweeds are photosynthetic and form basic biomasses in intertidal zones. On the basis of their pigmentation, these species have been broadly classified into three main groups of brown (Phaeophyta), red (Rhodophyta), and green (Chlorophyta) seaweeds [1]. Seaweeds contain several physiologically bioactive compounds with important economical relevance including polysaccharides, iodine organic products, macro- and micro-elements, vitamins, and unsaturated fatty acids (FAs) [2]. The second-most abundant group of marine algae, include approximately 2000 species. Sargassum spp., Laminaria spp., Ascophyllum spp., Fucus spp., and Turbinaria spp. are most commonly used at the industrial level [3]
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