The emerging nutraceutical, fucoxanthin, shows promise as a high-value product to enable the integrated biorefinery. Fucoxanthin can be extracted from algae through supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), but literature does not agree on optimal extraction conditions. Here, a statistical analysis of literature identifies supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO) density, ethanol cosolvent amount, and polarity as significant predictors of fucoxanthin yield. Novel SFE experiments are then performed using a fucoxanthin standard, describing its fundamental solubility. These experiments establish solvent system polarity as the key knob to tune fucoxanthin recovery from 0% to 100% and give specific operating conditions for targeted fucoxanthin extraction.Further experiments compare extractions on fucoxanthin standard with extractions from microalgae to elucidate the effect of the algae matrix. Results show selectivity of fucoxanthin over chlorophyll in scCO microalgae extractions that was not seen in extractions with ethanol, indicating a benefit of scCO to design selective extraction schemes.

中文翻译：

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阐明超临界流体从藻类中提取岩藻黄质以实现集成生物精炼


新兴的营养保健品岩藻黄质作为高价值产品有望实现综合生物精炼。岩藻黄质可以通过超临界流体萃取（SFE）从藻类中提取，但文献对最佳提取条件并未达成一致。在此，对文献的统计分析确定超临界二氧化碳 (scCO) 密度、乙醇共溶剂量和极性是岩藻黄质产量的重要预测因素。然后使用岩藻黄质标准品进行新颖的 SFE 实验，描述其基本溶解度。这些实验将溶剂系统极性作为将岩藻黄质回收率从 0% 调整到 100% 的关键旋钮，并给出了目标岩藻黄质提取的具体操作条件。进一步的实验将岩藻黄质标准品的提取与微藻的提取进行比较，以阐明藻类基质的影响。结果显示，scCO 微藻提取物中岩藻黄质相对于叶绿素的选择性在乙醇提取物中未见，这表明 scCO 有助于设计选择性提取方案。