In recent years, there has been an increased demand for organic products, free of allergens and synthetic additives as well as a growing consumers awareness for health hazards associated with the chemicals used. Consequently, natural bioactive compounds have attracted attention to replace the respective synthetic counterparts. At the same time, developing sustainable technologies and processes that are both greener and more effective for obtaining these compounds remains a significant challenge. Thus, this thesis is dedicated to optimizing a greener approach to extracting and purifying curcuminoids from Curcuma longa, using aqueous micellar solutions as a pivotal component of the process. To accomplish this objective, this work integrates solid-liquid extraction (SLE) and liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) while reducing the number of steps and solvents used in the conventional process. The SLE solvent is consisted of the McIlvaine buffer and the biodegradable surfactant, Tergitol 15–S–7, which is further able to form an aqueous micellar two-phase system (AMTPS), a particular type of LLE. Optimization of the solid-liquid ratio (SLR), the extraction time during the SLE and centrifugation time was performed. Results obtained show that the most promising conditions are a SLR of 0.025 and 30 minutes of extraction time. Extraction time has no significant influence on extraction of curcuminoids and proteins. Upon AMTPS formation, over 98% of the curcuminoids were recovered in the surfactant-rich phase. These results show this system as a promising method to succesfully recover curcuminoids and isolate them from their contaminants, proteins. Furthermore, optimization of HPLC method took place, allowing to distinguish all three curcuminoids individually. Using Phenomenex KINETEX 2.6 μm XB-C18 100 Å column with 0.1% formic acid in water/acetonitrile and a gradient elution as the mobile phase successfully presented three individual peaks corresponding to three individual curcuminoids.
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