Lycopene recovery from tomato and watermelon juices using supercritical chromatography

Abstract

There is an increasing number of consumer that are interested in special kinds of food that can provide some active effects on health in addition to its inherent nutritional characteristics. Among them, lycopene, a carotenoid responsible for the red color in several plants, has received special attention due to its antioxidant activity and to be claimed to protect the against some types of cancer and heart diseases. In this project, a process to recover lycopene from tomato and watermelon juices will be developed. The lycopene will be adsorbed on hydrophobic resin and eluted using supercritical carbon dioxide as solvent. Thus, no aggressive organic solvent or high temperatures will be used in the process. As a consequence, the lycopene fractions obtained should have good quality and probably can be used in the formulation of food supplements or to be presented in some functional foods. In addition, the modeling and the technical-economical of the lycopene recovery process will be carried out. If the studied recovery method presents technical and economical attractiveness, the knowledge acquired during the project execution should allow the preposition of a new process to obtain lycopene from tomato and watermelon juices. (AU)