Process Improvement On The Synthesis Of Canthaxanthin

Canthaxanthin is a kind of Carotenoids, widely exists in the mushroom, algae, crustaceans, fish, protein, blood, liver and etc. At present, it was mainly used as colorant in food, feed industry. At the same time, it was also used in the field of medicine and healthcare, playing roles of antioxidant, anticancer, enhancing immunity and health protection and etc.In the industrial production of Canthaxanthin, the main research methods included natural product extraction, microbial fermentation and chemical synthesis. The method of natural product extraction referred to extract the target product from shrimp, shellfish and etc, but it was not a large-scale industrialized production due to the limited raw material and extraction cost. The method of microbial fermentation also could not be produced in a larger-scale due to the lower of strain output rate and extract content. However, chemical synthesis has been widely accepted in the market due to the lower cost, higher content and easier production.There were different routes in the chemical synthesis method, and different manufacturers used different synthetic routes according to their different conditions. Many manufacturers used the total synthesis method from raw materials to products, but it has the longer general steps and almost needs Wittig reaction or Grignard reaction. Such reactions also usually exists shortcomings of harsh reaction conditions, large amount of waste, environment unfriendly and low overall yields. Many manufacturers also used the synthesis method from beta Carotene to Canthaxanthin in one step oxidation. This method usually used Halogen acid or hypochlorite salts as the oxidant in the conditions of Iodine halogenated Iodine catalyzing. It was a short reaction steps, but need to take special protection for the operators in the industrial production.The main purpose of this paper is to overcome the mentioned shortcomings of above methods. It was used safer catalyst instead of Iodine or halogenated Iodine, then the oxidant was selected sodium chlorate or sodium bromate and was suitable for industrialized production.This article was selected potassium iodide and hydrogen peroxide as the catalyst instead of iodine, sodium chlorate as oxidant and beta carotene as raw material in the acidic condition. At the same time, it was optimized of each reaction conditions, and then obtained the optimum condition for reaching78%total yield. The pilot production was tested according to the optimum condition in the lab. The result indicated that this process route has the obvious advantage of milder conditions and higher total yield.