The enhancement of phycocyanin yield and purity from Spirulina platensis using freeze-thawing method on various solvents

Abstract

Phycocyanin is a pigment compound that can be found from Spirulina platensis microalgae. It has been used for food colorant, cosmetic dye and fluorescence reagent for clinical diagnosis. Phycocyanin can be extracted using various procedure that was affected by many factors, one of them is the type of solvent that was used in the extraction process. This research will study the usage of different solvents, using sodium phosphate buffer and calcium chloride. The extraction method used in this research is freeze-thawing. The parameters of this extraction are phycocyanin yield and purity. The obtained result shows a higher yield of phycocyanin from extraction using phosphate buffer, with the value of 35.31 mg/g, and a higher phycocyanin purity from extraction using CaCl2 with the ratio of 2.6.