Processing Nannochloropsis gaditana biomass for the extraction of high-value biocompounds
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Processing Nannochloropsis gaditana biomass for the extraction of high-value biocompounds Rafael Sales 1 & María del Carmen Cerón-García 2 & Elvira Navarro-López 2 & Cynthia Victoria González-López 2 & Mônica Yumi Tsuzuki 1 & Francisco Gabriel Acién-Fernández 2 & Francisco Javier Alarcón-López 3 & Emilio Molina-Grima 2 Received: 7 December 2019 / Revised and accepted: 12 May 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Extraction of carotenoids and fatty acids from microalgae is a technological bottleneck in processing. An improved extraction process was developed to scale the production of these bioproducts from Nannochloropsis gaditana. Different cell disruption methods were evaluated in terms of carotenoid release. Ethanol was substituted with isopropyl alcohol in a three-component solution of water:isopropyl alcohol:hexane (WIH), in which the extracts were separated by solution partitioning. This resulted in higher carotenoid and fatty acid recovery yields if compared with the standard method. The extraction method was replicated on a pilot scale, obtaining similar carotenoid recovery yields, higher than those of the standard method. Although fatty acid recovery was lower than that of the small-scale tests, yields above 85% were obtained. This demonstrated that the method was scalable for the extraction of high-value products from microalgae up to 10-L reactor volume. The use of isopropyl alcohol, which is cheaper than ethanol, and the separation of the solution phases by partitioning (avoiding drying) could contribute to reduce operation costs of downstream processing. Keywords Microalgae . Nannochloropsis gaditana . Extraction . Polyunsaturated fatty acids . Carotenoids
Introduction Microalgae produce a variety of high-value products, some of which are available commercially such as carotenoids, phycobilins, fatty acids, sterols, polyhydroxyalkonoates, and polysaccharides, which are used as nutraceuticals and functional foods for human and animal consumption (Borowitzka 2013). Carotenoids are photosynthetic accessory pigments possessing several health benefits such as their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor properties; they can also be used as natural food colorants (Sathasivam et al. 2017). The direct use of synthetic carotenoids for human consumption entails some health concerns due to their potential toxicity, and its * María del Carmen Cerón-García [email protected] 1
Department of Aquaculture, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianópolis, Brazil
2
Department of Chemical Engineering and CIAIMBITAL, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain
3
Department of Biology and Geology, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain
use is limited to animal feed, colorants, and preservatives, while the natural ones have the advantage of being used as nutraceuticals (Gong and Bassi 2016). Consequently, the search for natural carotenoid sources has widened. Similarly, there is great interest in the production of longchain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs), since they are responsible for
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