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EXTRACTION OF OIL-SOLUBLE PIGMENT FROM MICRO-ORGANISMS

[Category : - Food- HEALTH- Organic Chemistry]
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Microalgae extract consisting of:

40-95 wt.% of a polar phase:
a. 15-75 wt.% water;
b. 20-80 wt.% of an organic water miscible solvent selected from alcohols, acetone and combinations;
c. 0-10 wt.% of sodium chloride;
d. up to 40 wt.% of other water soluble components;

5-60 wt.% of an apolar phase:
a. 70-99.5 wt.% of oil selected from triglycerides, diglycerides, monoglycerides, phosphatides, free fatty acids and combinations;
b. 0.05-25 wt.% of oil-soluble pigment;
c. up to 30 wt.%) of other oil soluble components;

The extract contains less than 0.5% by weight of apolar organic solvents as C5-C10 alkanes.

The extract can easily be downstream processed to produce a pigment containing oil in high yield

It may be used as such in the production of a foodstuffs or animal feed.

The invention further provides a process of extracting oil- soluble pigment from wet biomass of micro-organisms.

Financial information

We are looking for an outright sale and/or a licensee for this invention that has not been previously marketed.

The USA patent family member alone has been valued at a current market value of 155 K USD by an independent patent valuation consultancy (Feb 2015).

The invention has patent FAMILY currently ongoing in AUSTRALIA, EUROPE and CANADA as listed hereby

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Currently a related product is traded in EUROPE under the EU trademark VEGAKRILL
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The market potential of the product and process is above 1550K USD/year considering a conservative 10% of the total US market share in the nutraceutical and cosmetaceutical areas by 2015-2016.

The extract is distinct from currently sold products in the fact that it contains all the pigment material originally in the microalgae biomass.

Thereby the composition provides outstanding nutraceutical values over the currently existing extracts that are mostly limited to the apolar fractions and are therefore less rich in pigments.

Furthermore, the unique extraction process from WET biomass of micro-organisms does not require the use of volatile organic solvents that are detrimental for the health and the environment.

The invention is on the contrary based on natural extractants obtainable from agriculture waste (such as plant derived fermentation alcohols).

Moreover, the process operates at mild temperature conditions and without the need of costly and hard to maintain equipment, thus overcoming currently used high pressure extraction processes.