Abstract
As the interest in biorefinery approaches is continuously increasing, new alternatives for the downstream valorization of biomasses are sought. Porphyridium cruentum microalga is a good natural source for a variety of interesting bioactive compounds, including carotenoids, phycoerythrin, and sulfated polysaccharides. In the present contribution, the use of compressed fluids-based techniques is explored towards the efficient and green extraction of bioactive compounds to valorize microalgal biomass. The extraction of carotenoids was first optimized using pressurized ethanol. The best extraction conditions involved the use of 125 °C for 20 min at 10.5 MPa. Subsequently, a sequential valorization process was devised based on the application of different steps directed towards the extraction of phycoerythrin, sulfated polysaccharides, and carotenoids, respectively. The applied pressurized conditions allowed the attainment of a good recovery of polar components without compromising the stability and extraction of carotenoids. Therefore, the proposed approach could be employed to obtain different bioactives from P. cruentum microalgal biomass employing green extraction processes.
Highlights
Microalgae have attracted significant attention in recent times as a potential future new food source, creating a great expectancy to confirm if these microorganisms can be a part of our daily diet.In the meantime, what is already widely accepted is that these organisms are a promising source of high added-value products [1]
Some works showed that supercritical CO2 could be a good alternative for the extraction of carotenoids from microalgae [7,8], considering that zeaxanthin is a xanthophyll, belonging to the group of the most polar carotenoids, pressurized ethanol was selected for its extraction
The static extraction time was set at 20 min, which has been shown to be appropriate for the extraction of carotenoids by pressurized liquids extraction (PLE) [9]
Summary
Microalgae have attracted significant attention in recent times as a potential future new food source, creating a great expectancy to confirm if these microorganisms can be a part of our daily diet.In the meantime, what is already widely accepted is that these organisms are a promising source of high added-value products [1]. Other characteristics that make the cultivation of microalgae advantageous include that, i) they can be produced in non-arable land, not competing with other food production, ii) they only need light energy, carbon dioxide, and some other nutrients, and, iii) these organisms have higher photosynthetic efficiency than plants for the production of biomass [3]. This latter point implies that biomass production is generally faster
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