Atefeh Amiri-Rigi - PhD of Food Science and Technology; Field of Study: Rheology and Microemulsions Food Colloids and Rheology Lab., Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modares University, PO Box 14115-336, Tehran, Iran.
Soleiman Abbasi - Associate Professor; Field of Study: Food Colloids and Rheology, Emulsions, Microemulsions and Nanoemulsions Food Colloids and Rheology Lab., Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture,Tarbiat Modares University, PO Box 14115-336, T

Approximately 2.5 million tons of tomato are processed annually in Iran and their processing waste cause disposal problems and environmental pollution. Tomato processing waste is a good source oflycopene which can be extracted. Conventional methods for lycopene extraction using solvents havedrawbacks like using large amounts of environmentally harmful organic solvents and trace amounts of solvent left over in the final product. The purpose of this study was to apply microemulsion technique,as a novel route to synthesize nanostructures, for lycopene extraction and to establish the influence ofits three components on the extraction yield of lycopene in microemulsion. Our results suggest that by increasing the lycopene phase the extraction yield decreased and the microemulsion was converted from oil-in-water to water-in-oil one. It was also demonstrated that increasing surfactant component(tween 80) up to surfactant:lycopene ratio of 40 increased the extraction yield while causing the phase inversion from water-in-oil to oil-in-water. In terms of water component, increasing water phase increased extraction efficiency and caused transition from water-in-oil to oil-in-water microemulsion. It was shown that lycopene phase:surfactant phase:water phase ratio of 1:40:60 led to the highest efficiency of 160 μg/g lycopene.

Lycopene, Nanodroplets, Phase Behaviour, Tween 80