Extraction of carotenoids and fatty acids from microalgae is a technological bottleneck in processing. An improved extraction process was developed to scale the production of these bioproducts from Nannochloropsis gaditana. Different cell disruption methods were evaluated in terms of carotenoid release. Ethanol was substituted with isopropyl alcohol in a three-component solution of water:isopropyl alcohol:hexane (WIH), in which the extracts were separated by solution partitioning. This resulted in higher carotenoid and fatty acid recovery yields if compared with the standard method. The extraction method was replicated on a pilot scale, obtaining similar carotenoid recovery yields, higher than those of the standard method. Although fatty acid recovery was lower than that of the small-scale tests, yields above 85% were obtained. This demonstrated that the method was scalable for the extraction of high-value products from microalgae up to 10-L reactor volume. The use of isopropyl alcohol, which is cheaper than ethanol, and the separation of the solution phases by partitioning (avoiding drying) could contribute to reduce operation costs of downstream processing.

从微藻中提取类胡萝卜素和脂肪酸是加工中的技术瓶颈。开发了改进的提取工艺，以扩大来自Nannochloropsis gaditana的这些生物产品的生产。根据类胡萝卜素释放评估了不同的细胞破坏方法。在水：异丙醇：己烷（WIH）的三组分溶液中，用异丙醇代替乙醇，其中萃取液通过溶液分配进行分离。如果与标准方法相比，可以得到更高的类胡萝卜素和脂肪酸回收率。提取方法以中试规模重复进行，获得了比标准方法更高的相似的类胡萝卜素回收率。尽管脂肪酸回收率低于小规模试验，但收率仍高于85％。这表明该方法可扩展用于从微藻中提取高价值的产品，直至反应器体积达到10升。使用比乙醇便宜的异丙醇，