Recovery of β-Carotene from Microalga Dunaliella sp. by HPCCC

Abstract

β-carotene, a high-value carotenoid widely used in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries, is naturally synthesized by the microalga Dunaliella sp. However, the efficient extraction and purification of β-carotene from microalgae biomass remain a technical challenge. This study presents the development of a scalable and efficient isolation method employing high-performance countercurrent chromatography (HPCCC) to recover β-carotene from Dunaliella sp. The separation process was optimized by integrating two elution strategies (reverse phase and extrusion) using a biphasic solvent system of n-heptane and methanol (1:1, v/v). The upper phase served as the stationary phase, while the lower phase was used as the mobile phase. Two consecutive injections of 800 mg of microalgal extract each resulted in the isolation of 225.4 mg of β-carotene with a purity of 97% and a recovery of 98%. The developed HPCCC approach represents an efficient method for β-carotene purification and serves as a promising model for future scale-up in microalgae-based production platforms.