14A-18

N. B. JOSé LUIS¹, R. M. Ramiro, J. I. Hugo, D. D. Jorge⁴, and R. G. Carlos⁵. (1) Departamento de Ingeniería Bioquímica, Instituto Tecnológico de Celaya, Avenida Tecnológico s/n, Celaya Guanajuato, 38010, Mexico, (2) Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas, Universidad de Guanajuato, Callejón de Jalisco s/n, Guanajuato, Gto., 36022, Mexico, (3) Departamento de Investigacion y Posgrado en Alimentos, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Cerro de las Campanas s/n, Querétaro Qro., 76010, Mexico

The design of many separation processes if often hindered by the lack of equilibrium data. Inappropriate or partial designs result in inefficiencies that may translate in poor recovery of the product, overdesigned separation equipment and additional purification or separation stages. This problem is particularly present in the design of lixiviation separations for the Biochemical industries. Thus, it is neccesary to develop methodologies that could lead to the obtention of reliable equilibrium data. We study the extraction of oleoresin pigment (xanthophyll) from marigold flowers, widely used in food formulation for poultry, fish and pigs to improve quality attributes required by consumers, e.g egg yolk color. We demonstrate that is possible to obtain an excellent separation efficiency of xanthophyll from the marigold flower flour, without significant losses, using the Response Surface Methodology as principal optimization tool. The contribution goal is to propose the use of design of experiments, specifically the Response Surface Methodology, to obtain equilibrium data in the lixiviation operation of the ternary system xanthophyll-marigold flower flour-hexane. A factorial type experimental design for two levels was devised to quantify the significant factors in the extraction. The Response Surface Methodology results were cast in the form of an equation giving the relationship between the operating variables and the xanthophyll extraction. The method leads to conditions that allow the recovery of 95.3% the pigment in a countercurrent process in seven stages at 35 ºC, with a relatively small proportion of hexane to flour (ratio 1:6 (w/v)) and with only 15 minutes of residence time. This study illustrates the ability of the Response Surface Methodology as a robust tool to predict, optimize and design lixiviation processes. This technique can be straightforwardly extended to be applied in the study of other types of separation process.