Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Emulsion Obtained by Ultrasound Emulsification Assisted by Nitrogen Hydrostatic Pressure Using Novel Biosurfactant

Abstract

Surfactants are widely used in the food industry to form and stabilize emulsion-based food and beverage products. The use of natural surfactant to replace the synthetic ones is a recent demand in industries. In this work, first it was evaluated the influence of hydrostatic pressure levels (up to 10 bars applying nitrogen), oily phase type and surfactant type. In addition, we propose a novel surfactant for the formulation of emulsions constituted of concentration of saponin-enriched extract. The extract containing saponins was obtained from pressurized hot water extraction of Brazilian Ginseng (Pfaffia glomerata) roots. The emulsions containing saponin extract were used for further processing by Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Emulsions (SFEE), using an oily bixin-rich extract from annatto seeds (Bixa orellana L.) as core material (extracting solution from hot ethyl acetate pressurized extraction). Since, the final product of SFEE achieved a low residual ethyl acetate concentration (9.4 ppm). Regarding droplet size similar results were obtained for the emulsion (549 nm) and the produced suspension (569 nm), which were 24.74% lower than the droplet size obtained in process not assisted with pressurized nitrogen atmosphere (730 nm). This work proposed the use of this alternative biosurfactant and the process that we named Ultrasound Emulsification Assisted by Nitrogen Hydrostatic Pressure (UEANHP), during the emulsification preparation step of the SFEE process.