Análise comparativa entre técnicas de processamentos para extração de pigmentos nas sementes de urucum.

Abstract

The annatto tree (Bixa orellana L), is a tree with predominance in Tropical America regions particularly in Brazil, which has the biggest world production. The annatto seeds pigments are most used as natural pigment basically and are basically composed of bixin, with level around 80%, and norbixin, in a lower concentration. The pigment obtained through the annatto seeds is applied on the industry as a liquid, paste or powder; however, for its industrialization, technological knowledge which allows the gain of pigments with low cost and with an acceptable quality is indispensable and this technology turns the product capable to compete in the international market. The extraction process optimization is of fundamental importance and seeks not only increase the productivity but also minimize the contamination with the by-products of decomposition. The technological development that leads not only the extraction of gross pigment, but mainly induces the bixin high purity gain, conjugated with its stabilization, is of fundamental importance to add value to the product. Therefore, the objective of this work was to accomplish a comparative analysis between technical of processes in the extraction of pigments from the annatto seeds. It was driven two ways of extraction of annatto pigments seeds: oil soluble extraction and water soluble. In the oil soluble extraction, the solvent used was the commercial vegetal oil and on the water soluble extraction, the solvent used was sodium hydroxide. In the studied extraction systems it is ended that is possible to produce annatto seed pigment with the oil soluble method as well as the water soluble method and that the stability of pigments is affect in function the concentration of hydroxide sodium and also in function of the temperature of storage.