Abstract
This study provides an efficient alternative by extracting bioactive compounds from Haematococcus pluvialis via matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) from its wet form, reducing one of the process steps with the greatest economic impact, the drying of the microalga. To obtain a suitable extract for nutraceutical purposes, solvents with the generally recognised as safe (GRAS) designation (ethanol, ethyl lactate, and ethyl acetate) with limitations of use (acetone) and extractants with higher toxicity such as methanol and methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE) are contrasted. Through the optimisation of the extractive process, ethanol, a GRAS solvent, presents the best overall recovery for carotenoid compounds and fatty acids, showing an antioxidant activity of 1.58 mmolTE g−1 DW, comparable to its synthetic alternative of petrochemical origin without the drawback of having limitations in its food use. In addition, the identification of the phenolic compounds, phloroglucinol, p-coumaric acid, gallic acid, and catechin, not previously characterised in red stage H. pluvialis, provides a response to the phenolic activity present in the extract (24.65 mmolGAE g−1 DW). Comparison of the extractive efficiency obtained with the main methods for the extraction of carotenoids and fatty acids in H. pluvialis, in contrast to the proposed method, shows a positive feasibility of this approach.
Highlights
About 95% of the astaxanthin produced worldwide is the result of synthetic production (Jannel et al 2020), which, it has proven not to be as beneficial as its natural counterpart, its low manufacturing costs in relation to extraction from Haematococcus pluvialis have made it the preferred route to produce this carotenoid (Panis and Carreon 2016)
For the quantification of fatty acids and polyphenols, standards were prepared in ethanol, using nonadecanoic acid supplied by Tokyo Chemical Industry (Tokyo, Japan) and quercetin supplied by Sigma-Aldrich Chemie GmbH (SIGMA), respectively, as internal standard
Before matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) optimisation, preliminary analysis to evaluate the influence of the elution solvent on the extraction efficiency of fatty acids, carotenoids, and carbohydrates was performed
Summary
About 95% of the astaxanthin produced worldwide is the result of synthetic production (Jannel et al 2020), which, it has proven not to be as beneficial as its natural counterpart, its low manufacturing costs in relation to extraction from Haematococcus pluvialis have made it the preferred route to produce this carotenoid (Panis and Carreon 2016). A limited extractive availability of this carotenoid astaxanthin contained in H. pluvialis, due to a strong, thick, and rigid cell wall present in its aplanospore stage, is a characteristic hindrance in this alga (Ye et al 2020) Conventional techniques, such as Soxhlet extraction (Irshad et al 2019a), have been used to penetrate the cell, but drawbacks that include long extraction times, high temperatures, and toxic solvents turn it into a costly alternative and difficult to apply in the nutraceutical field (Chen et al 2020). Green solutions such as microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) has been used for the extraction of astaxanthin from H. pluvialis (Ruen-ngam et al 2011). These approaches face a complex tradeoff between disruption efficiency and energy consumption, resulting in complex scaling, such as the balance between optimal operating conditions and extract integrity (Kapoore et al 2018)
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