Journal of Supercritical Fluids, Vol.138, 124-131, 2018
Production of beta-carotene nanosuspensions using supercritical CO2 and improvement of its efficiency by Z-isomerization pre-treatment
The effects of Z-isomer content of beta-carotene on the dispersion efficiency by ultrasound treatment using supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) as an organic phase and the characteristics and storage stability of the obtained suspensions were investigated. beta-Carotene containing a large amount of Z-isomer (79.1% of total beta-carotene) was prepared by a thermal Z-isomerization and filtering technique from (all-E)-beta-carotene. When Z-isomer-rich beta carotene was used as the raw material, the encapsulated A-carotene content was remarkably increased compared to when using (all-E)-1-carotene, e.g., the encapsulated beta-carotene content was 21.2 times higher after the 60 min ultrasound treatment at 45 kHz. Furthermore, the Z-isomerization pre-treatment resulted in a reduction of particle size in the suspensions. The mean particle size when (all-E)-beta-carotene was used was approximately 700 rim and that when the Z-isomers were used was approximately 100 rim. On the other hand, the suspension obtained from Z-isomer-rich A-carotene had lower storage stability than the all-E-isomer.