A new environmentally friendly method for astaxanthin extraction from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous

Few environmentally friendly solvents are available to extract food-grade astaxanthin. In this paper, some environmentally friendly solvents, such as lactic acid, ethyl lactate, and ethanol, were employed in cell disruption and astaxanthin extraction from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous. The extraction procedure was optimized, validated and compared with other conventional extraction techniques. This method gave the best result due to the highest extraction efficiency within short extraction time. The optimum extraction conditions were as follows: the yeast cell wall was disrupted by lactic acid at 65° C for 1 h and then extracted with ethyl lactate:ethanol (1:1, v/v) for 0.5 h. It was proved that the extraction efficiency was enhanced by the addition of the natural antioxidant α-tocopherol. This new method showed low chemical toxicity and gave high extraction efficiency, which had good prospects for mass production at the industrial scale.