Co-Precipitation of Beta-Carotene and Bio-Polymer Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide as Antisolvent

The objective of this work was to investigate the application of supercritical carbon dioxide as antisolvent for the co-precipitation of -carotene and poly(hydroxybutirate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) with dichloromethane as organic solvent. For this purpose, the concentrations of -carotene (1 to 8 mg.cm) and PHBV (20 to 40 mg.cm) in the organic solution were varied keeping fixed temperature at 313 K, pressure at 8 MPa, solution flow rate at 1 cm.min and antisolvent flow rate at 39 g.min. The morphology of co-precipitated particles were spherical with very irregular and porous surface for some conditions and very smooth surfaces for others as verified by micrographs of scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). Results show that it is possible to achieve encapsulation efficiency values as high as 35 % just manipulating the concentration ratio of solute to polymer in organic solution. The methodology adopted for the quantification of -carotene encapsulated was demonstrated to be adequate.