Co-precipitation of anthocyanin in PHBV by the SEDS technique.

ABSTRACT

Anthocyanins are pigments of plant origin responsible for most blue, purple and all shades of red found in flowers, fruits and some stems and roots of plants, besides comprising a class of potent antioxidant phenolic compounds. Due to the relevance of anthocyanins this work aims to encapsulate anthocyanin extracted from the wine lees through the Solution Enhanced Dispersion by Supercritical Fluids (SEDS) technique and to evaluate the thermal stability of encapsulated versus non-encapsulated anthocyanin. The highest encapsulation efficiency obtained was approximately 66%. Submicron size particles ranging from 0.22 to 0.30 µm were obtained and they were free of residual organic solvent. In relation to the thermal stability, it was verified that the particles degraded about six times less than the non-encapsulated sample, which allows numerous applications since one of the barriers of anthocyanin use is its sensitivity to high temperatures.