Apparent solubility of lycopene and β-carotene in supercritical CO2, CO2 + ethanol and CO2 + canola oil using dynamic extraction of tomatoes

Abstract Lycopene and β-carotene were extracted from freeze-dried tomatoes (skin + pulp) with pure SC CO 2 and SC CO 2  + 5% w/w co-solvent at 40 °C, 400 bar and flow rates of 0.5 and 1.2 L/min. The apparent solubility of lycopene and β-carotene in the multicomponent complex system was determined from dynamic extraction experiments using a laboratory-scale supercritical extraction system. Solubility of pure lycopene and β-carotene in SC CO 2 (binary system) was reported in the literature to be of the order of 10 −6 mole fraction. The apparent solubility of lycopene extracted from tomatoes with SC CO 2 (multicomponent complex system) under the same conditions was almost one order of magnitude smaller. The apparent solubility obtained using oil as a co-solvent was higher than that obtained with ethanol as a co-solvent or pure SC CO 2 . The differences in solubility are mainly due to the polarity of the co-solvent and the impact of the tomato matrix in the multicomponent complex system.