Extração, micronização e estabilização de pigmentos funcionais : construção de uma unidade multipropósito para desenvolvimento de processos com fluídos pressurizados / Extractionm micronization and stabilization of functional pigments : construction of multipurpose unit for pressurized fluid process development

Diego Tresinari dos Santos

The food industry is continuously searching compounds that present physical and chemical properties to improve their products. Most of them are additives with antioxidant properties, colorants or additives with positive effects to human health. Natural additives are always preferred to synthetic compounds. Flavonoids and carotenoids are two of the major functional pigments class that food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries are more interested recently. Nevertheless, these compounds present a series of limitations when applied to processed products. Several factors, such as light, temperature, pH, among others, trigger the oxidative degradation of theses functional pigments limiting not only their final applications, but also restricting all the process chain: from the choice of the extraction method of the pigment from the vegetable source, passing through the choice of the particle reduction and/or encapsulation technique aiming the improvement of the dissolution rate, biodisponibility and stability of these compounds. Technologies for extraction, micronization and stabilization of functional pigments into polymeric matrices using supercritical fluids may represent an environmentally friend alternative, once they are inserted in the concept of green chemistry and sustainable development, and economically viable comparing to conventional methods, wherein large amounts of organic solvents, long process time and high temperatures are required, that can promote degradation, i. e., color and antioxidant activity loss, conditions normally employed on conventional processes. Moreover, extraction and particle formation processes utilizing supercritical fluids permit an easy and efficient process control with little variation on operational conditions (Pressure, Temperature, etc.). Despite distinct commercial equipments are available to carry out each mentioned process a unit for research that can be used to carry out different processes with pressurized fluids would lead to a better cost-benefit relation associated to this technology. Therefore, a multipurpose unit to develop processes with pressurized fluids that can be used for extraction and particle formation purposes of functional pigments, as well as of other bioactive compounds using the same apparatus was designed, constructed and tested. Extraction processes using supercritical CO2, employing pressurized liquid solvents, assisted by high pressure carbon dioxide; particle formation processes to obtain encapsulated or non encapsulated particles via RESS (Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions) and SAS (Supercritical Anti-Solvent) were done using the multipurpose unit producing comparable experimental results to those obtained by similar equipments. Good reproducibility and better results than those obtained using conventional processes were observed employing our home-made apparatus

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