Over the past few years, research regarding lycopene has intensified since the consumption of lycopene rich foods such as tomato and tomato products has been associated with reduced risks of developing prostrate cancer. Thus the objectives of this research were (1) develop and optimise methodology for the extraction of lycopene from tomato waste, (2) use the methodology to obtain lycopene from different tomato batches, (3) produce high purity lycopene crystals and (4) follow the purification process of lycopene using high performance liquid chromatography on a C30 column. The method developed to obtain lycopene from tomato residue, and optimised using a factorial experimental design, consisted of a preliminary water removal step with four 30-minute extractions, each with 30mL ethanol, followed by four 120-minute extractions with ethyl acetate, each extraction with a mass/volume ratio of 1:0.7. The mean carotenoid content (calculated as lycopene), obtained from 6 tomato pickings, was 59.2 ± 21.8µg/g. Lycopene with 98% purity was obtained from two successive crystallisation processes. HPLC analysis showed the presence of traces of the 5-cis-, 5-cis,5'-cis- and 13-cis-lycopene isomers in the lycopene crystal.
lycopene; tomato waste; extraction; microscopy; high performance liquid chromatography
