Co-precipitation of carotenoids and bio-polymers with the supercritical anti-solvent process

ÁNGEL MARTÍN; FACUNDO MATTEA; LAURA GUTIÉRREZ; FERNANDO MIGUEL; MARÍA JOSÉ COCERO

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2006 vol. 41 p. 138 - 138

arotenoids are widely used as natural colorants in food or pharmaceutical industries. In some industrial formulations, these carotenoids are mixed with bio-polymers, to improve the stability of the carotenoid, its dissolution rate in water, and to make the dosage and the handling of the product easier. The supercritical anti-solvent (SAS) process is specially suitable for the production of fine powders of these mixtures, as it yields solvent-free products with a reduced thermal degradation or oxidation of the carotenoids. In this work, the application of the SAS process to the precipitation of 􏰆- carotene or lutein with poly-ethylene glycol (PEG) has been studied. The influence of different process parameters, including the operating pressure and temperature, the polymer/carotenoid concentration ratio, and the CO2 flowrate have been studied experimentally. Additionally, a phase equilib- rium model of these systems based in the perturbed hard-sphere-chain equation of state (PH