Production of carotenoids from oil palm empty fruit bunches

Abstract

Carotenoids are widely used for food colorants to give yellow, orange, or red color in food products. Besides extraction from orange color vegetables/fruits such as carrot, yellow squash, or oil palm, natural carotenoids can also be extracted from microorganisms such as algae or fungi. The processing of oil palm fresh fruit bunches to crude palm oil also produces empty fruit bunches (EFBs) as the biomass waste. This extraction residue still contains traces of oil and thereby also contains carotenoids. The dumped EFBs nearby the palm oil processing plants are also a potential substrate for natural fungal fermentation. This paper explores the potential of EFBs and fungal fermented EFBs as the raw materials for carotenoid extraction. The soxhlet extraction method was applied, using hexane as the solvent. Carotenes were analysed by using spectrophotometer. The obtained results showed that carotene can be extracted from EFBs and fungal fermentation increased the carotene content of EFBs.