Ultrasound-assisted extraction with three independent variables (sonication time, ethanol concentration and sonication amplitude) was optimized by plotting response surface graphs with b-carotene yield as the dependent variable. At optimum conditions (7.03 min extraction time, 62.03% ethanol concentration and 83.7% amplitude) b-carotene yield of 55 mg/g of Chlorella biomass were obtained. The functional apple jam was prepared by fortifying it with the Chlorella extract at optimized conditions (5, 7.5 and 10 mg/100 g apple jam) and with whole Chlorella biomass powder (1, 2 and 3% w/w). The samples fortified with the b-carotene extract had over 10 times more vitamin A content as compared with the samples to which whole Chlorella biomass were added. A comparative study of different forms and rate of fortification was carried out, and it was found that the extract added samples have higher nutritive value and overall acceptability as a functional food.
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSUltrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) is a novel extraction method that is postulated to enable a more efficient commercial extraction of bioactives from different sources by causing minimal loss of activity, as compared with conventional solvent extraction. Among the carotenes, b-carotene is the most important and has been shown to have many health benefits. The majority of the commercial b-carotene productions is through the synthetic process. Of late it has been noticed that consumer acceptability toward products derived from natural sources is much higher as compared with the ones manufactured synthetically. The results of this work contribute to exploring the commercial application of the ultrasound extraction method to produce a product fortified with the b-carotene extract from Chlorella biomass. To demonstrate this, apple jam fortified with the b-carotene extract from Chlorella biomass was produced. Two fortification methods (biomass addition and extract addition) have been studied and compared.
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