Efficient extraction of food grade natural blue colorant from dry biomass of Spirulina platensis using eco-friendly methods.

Eco-friendly methods for extraction of phycocyanins (C-PC and A-PC) from dry biomass of Spirulina platensis were carried out employing nanoparticles (NP), polyethylene glycol (PEG) and salts. There are practically no reports on such methods of extraction of phyco- cyanins from S. platensis. Standardization of process parameters such as concentration of NP/salt/PEG, extraction time, temperature and solvent was carried out for all the methods employed to achieve maximum productivity (yield and purity). The standardized conditions for NP, salt and PEG based extractions were observed to be 10 p.g/mL, 3 mg/mL and 10% w/w concentration, respectively, phosphate buffer as an extraction solvent, 160 min of extraction time and 35 C of extraction temperature. Silver nanoparticles based extraction resulted in the highest yield (47.68 and 34.18 mg/g db) and purity (0.98 and 0.33) of C-PC and A-PC, respectively. These results are among the highest reported in the primary extraction (itself) without any additional field intervention or process aids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]