Buchweitz, V., Dauti, K., Alhadid, A., Minceva, M. Evaluation of Green and Biobased Solvent Systems for the Extraction of β-Carotene and Lipids from Rhodosporidium toruloides. ACS Omega, 2025, In press. doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.4c10851

Abstract

Oleaginous microorganisms are promising for the biotechnological production of valuable hydrophobic bioactive components. For an environmentally friendly extraction, we evaluated a two-step process for β-carotene and lipid isolation from wet Rhodosporidium toruloides biomass using biphasic green and biobased solvent systems: 2-methyl tetrahydrofuran (2-MeTHF) or cyclopentyl-methyl-ether (CPME) with ethanol or 1-butanol and water. Initially, components were extracted with a single-phase solvent mixture, followed by separating hydrophobic target components from polar impurities via phase separation. We employed the Conductor-like Screening Model for Real Solvents (COSMO-RS) to predict the solubility of β-carotene and select compositions with higher solubility. Our study highlights the potential of these solvent systems for extracting hydrophobic components and the importance of understanding the system’s liquid–liquid equilibria for effective process design. We present a framework for evaluating new solvent systems for extracting hydrophobic bioactive compounds by demonstrating the impact of solvent composition selection on extraction yields and solvent consumption.

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