Production of Natural Dye from Macro Algae

Abstract

Dye is an intensely colored complex organic substance used for colouring other materials. They can be synthesized artificially or obtained from natural products. Natural colours are also called biocolors since they are extracted from biological materials like fruits, vegetables, seeds, roots, insects and microorganisms. In this study, microbial fermentation using macro algae as substrate was utilized to extract dye. Different macro algae such as Chaetomorphaantennia, Gracilariacorticota and Ulva fasciata were collected from Kovalam, Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu and were used as a substrate for fermentation. Aspergillus nigerwas used as an inoculum for fermentation. SSF was carried out for 10 days and the dye was extracted. Quality of the colour was analysed by adding fixative and non fixative at different time intervals. Results revealed that the colour intensity was more in the addition of fixative. Different pigments such as chlorophyll a (20.625 mg/l) was found more in U.fasciata , chlorophyll b (12.486 mg/l) was to be more in G.corticata and high amount of total carotene was found in ( 14.701mg/l) in C.antennina and least was found in U.fasciata(3.39 mg/l). Among all seaweed substrates, C.antenninawas found to be the good one to impart colour