Abstract
Products extracted from natural resources are an increasing trend in several fields promoted by consumer demand. Allied to the importance attached to the concept of “natural product” should be the way the “natural product” is obtained. In this work, chlorophyll was extracted from batches of wild-harvested and farm-raised green macroalgae Ulva spp. from two different European locations, Portugal and France. The performance of different aqueous solutions of tensioactive compounds such as ionic liquids and common surfactants in the yield of extraction of chlorophyll was studied and the operational conditions of extraction were optimized. The effect of drying the biomass on the yield of extraction of chlorophyll was evaluated as well as the effect of both locations (and the specific conditions of each location in terms of nutrients, water temperature and light intensity) in chlorophyll production. After optimization of all operational conditions, a maximum yield of extraction of 5.96 mgchl·gdry algae−1 was obtained using 250 mM of tributyltetradecylphosphonium chloride ([P4,4,4,14]Cl). The use of this solvent has allowed the development of a cost-effective (conclusion obtained after the economic analysis) and efficient process capable of maintaining the stability of the final product for more than one month.
Highlights
Blue biotechnology is emerging as a solution to reduce the world need of synthetic compounds from non-renewable raw materials
In the screening of the alternative solvents (Fig. 1) common surfactants and tensioactive ionic liquids (ILs), namely imidazolium, phosphonium, and ammonium-based ILs were studied in a concentration of 250 mM, solidliquid ratio (SLR) of 0.01 gbiomass.mLsolvent-1 for 30 minutes
The aqueous solutions of SDS and [P4,4,4,14]Cl stand out as the most efficient solvents with similar or even higher results than the ones reported for ethanol
Summary
Blue biotechnology is emerging as a solution to reduce the world need of synthetic compounds from non-renewable raw materials. Macroalgae are an example of such a biomass, which did not have, up to now, a multi-application approach of the biomass, being macroalgae used mainly for polysaccharide extraction for human food, or other lower volume sectors like cosmetics, feed and pharma This type of biomass can benefit from its integration in processes answering the biorefinery challenges, by combining the extraction of added-value molecules with high-volume/low-cost applications as feed, plant biostimulants or even energy and bioplastics [2]. Pigments are extremely important for macroalgae since they ensure the light capture required for photosynthesis [5] They have a significant number of applications attributed, currently mainly cosmetics but potentially including pharmaceutical products as well as food and even textile dyes [6,7]
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