Supercritical anti solvent precipitation of lycopene: Effect of the operating parameters

The micronization of lycopene from dichloromethane solutions with a semicontinuous supercritical anti solvent precipitation process has been successfully performed. The mean diameter of the particles varies from about 10 to 80mum with the different operating parameters (pressure, temperature, initial concentration and CO2 ratio). Needle-like particles have been obtained in all the experiments; thus, no variation of particle morphology with the operating parameters has been observed. The experimental results have been interpreted with the aid of a thermodynamic phase equilibrium model based on the perturbed hard-sphere-chain (PHSC) equation of state. It has been shown that the parameter with a strongest influence in the mean particle size is the supersaturation.