RESUMO
In this work, the effectiveness of different enzymatic techniques for cell wall disruption of Haematococcus pluvialis for the extraction of carotenoids and subsequent encapsulation of extracts in the co-polymer poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) using the Solution Enhanced Dispersion by Supercritical fluids (SEDS) technique was investigated. Glucanex(®) performed best compared with Lyticase(®) and Driselase(®). The conditions for enzymatic lysis using this enzyme preparation were established as a pH of 4.5, a temperature of 55 °C, an initial activity of ß-1,3-glucanase of 0.6 U mL(-1) and a reaction time of 30 min. Enzymatic lysis assisted by ultrasound without biomass freezing was shown to be a promising and simple one-step technique for cell wall disruption, reaching 83.90% extractability. In the co-precipitation experiments, the highest encapsulation efficiency (51.21%) was obtained when using a higher biomass to dichloromethane ratio (10 mg mL(-1)) at the carotenoid extraction step and a lower pressure of precipitation (80 bar). In these conditions, spherical particles in the micrometer range (0.228 µm) were obtained.