Extraction of pure lycopene from industrial tomato waste in water using the extractor Naviglio

Abstract

In this paper an innovative process for the extraction of pure lycopene from tomato-waste in water that uses the
Extractor Naviglio®
and water as solvent is presented. The use of water as extracting solvent considerably reduces
the cost of the entire process if compared with the commonly used solvent-based procedure or with the newer
supercritical extraction process of lycopene from tomato-waste. Exhausted tomato-waste treated with water can be
then easily dried at room temperature and further used, e.g. in agriculture or as food ingredient in animal nutrition.
Lycopene, not soluble in water, was recovered in a quasi-crystalline solid form and purified by SPE (Solid Phase
Extraction) using a small amount of organic solvent. The all trans lycopene was obtained at a very high grade of
purity, not less than 98% (w/w), with an average recovery from tomato waste of 14% (w/w). The availability of high
purity all trans lycopene allowed us also to measure the molar absorption coefficient, unique for each molecule. An
alternative procedure for the HPLC analysis, that uses a phenyl-hexyl silicone stationary phase as inverse phase
and a linear gradient in water and acetonitrile, is also described.