Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of astaxanthin from Haematococcus pluvialis with vegetable oils as co-solvent

Soybean oil and olive oil were investigated as continuous co-solvents for supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) extraction of astaxanthin from Haematococcus pluvialis. Without co-solvents, only 25.40 ± 0.79% efficiency was achieved with SC-CO2 extraction at 70 °C and 40 MPa at a continuous flow rate of 3 mL min−1 for 5 h. In the presence of soybean oil or olive oil as a co-solvent, the extraction efficiency was enhanced, with the most appropriate level of soybean oil in the solvent mixture being 10% by volume. At this concentration and the above extraction conditions, the highest extraction efficiency of 36.36 ± 0.79% was obtained for soybean oil, a 30% increase in extraction efficiency compared with SC-CO2 extraction without soybean oil, whereas the 10% olive oil increased the extraction efficiency further to 51.03 ± 1.08%, which was comparable to that obtained using ethanol as co-solvent.