Preparation of lycopene nanodispersions from tomato processing waste: Effects of organic phase composition

Lycopene was extracted from tomato processing wastes and its size was decreased into nano-ranges using an ultrasound assisted nano-precipitation technique. A simplex centroid mixture design was applied to investigate the interactions between three selected solvents, with totally polar, semi polar and non-polar natures, namely, acetone, ethyl acetate and hexane, respectively, in either extraction or size reduction steps. Full cubic regression models with adequate determination of coefficients (>92%) were attained for mean particle size, size distribution and lycopene content variations of produced nanoparticles, as selected response variables. The numerical multiple-response optimization suggested that the organic phase with 31% (v/v) acetone, 38% (v/v) ethyl acetate and 31% (v/v) hexane yielded the best lycopene nanoparticles with the particle size of 73.5 nm (minimum), size distribution of 0.11 (PDI, minimum), and lycopene content of 7615 mg/L (maximum). Although the optimum lycopene nanoparticles were physically stable during 4-week storage at 4 ± 2 °C, its lycopene content decreased by a first order kinetic model with the rate constant of 0.1835 (1/week). The non-significant (p > 0.05) differences between the predicted and experimental values of the response variables endorsed the adequacy of the suggested fitted models.