Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Chlorophylls and Phycocyanin from Spirulina platensis

Abstract

Spirulina platensis found enormous applications in agriculture, food industry, pharmacy, cosmetics, medicine, mainly because of its high nutritional content and health-promoting properties. Therefore, the extraction of bioactive compounds from it still remains a challenge. The aim of the current study was to extract photosynthetic pigments from different Spirulina platensis samples and to evaluate the yield and purity of phycocyanin using ultrasonic irradiation at two different frequencies. The content of chlorophylls and phycocyanin was determined in three samples of Spirulina platensis (dry, lyophilized and frozen). The highest values of total chlorophyll were found in SP 1 (Spirulina platensis dry biosample) – 9080 µg/g dw. For the extraction of phycocyanin the classical and the ultrasound-assisted extractions were performed with distilled water under two frequencies. The highest yield of phycocyanin (2.5 mg/g dw) and purity 0.8 were obtained for 3 hours at 35 kHz sonification. This study remained the main advantage of using ultrasonic power as green extraction for the highest phycocyanin yield and purity, reducing both processing times and costs.