Natural pigment extracts in oil or powder from upcycled produce

Overview

Natural pigment extracts are produced from upcycled produce sources, including carrot peels and cucumber peels, using proprietary supercritical fluid and advanced filtration technology. The extracted pigments are available in either oil or powder form, allowing formulators to match the format to their specific application. This approach converts previously discarded agricultural material into valuable color and functional ingredients for food, beverage, cosmetics, and personal care products.

The core advantage is process tunability: supercritical fluid parameters can be adjusted to select specific pigments and either retain or remove the lipid layer, depending on the target formulation’s requirements. This enables cleaner, low-thermal-impact extracts compared with conventional processing routes.

Technical specifications

Core capabilities:

• Oil-form and powder-form pigment isolates from upcycled produce
• Supercritical fluid extraction with tunable parameters for pigment selectivity
• Advanced filtration to isolate and purify the target pigment
• Subcritical operating mode to avoid heat degradation when needed
• Bench-scale development starting at 56 g of natural material
• Intermediate pilot validation at approximately 456 g capacity
• Custom system configuration for scale-up to production volumes

Workflow: The process begins by sourcing small amounts of natural material and configuring a bench-scale system to the desired pigment and format. Extraction, testing, analysis, and system tuning are repeated until the target outcome is achieved. Successful runs are then validated at larger capacity before moving to production scale. Because each pigment source and target format may behave differently, validation is recommended before full-scale adoption.

Technology readiness level

The technology has been demonstrated for botanical extraction and is available for bench-scale proof of concept. The proposed engagement path starts with a demonstration, followed by a basic agreement and a structured R&D plan. This staged approach lets partners validate the extraction method on small samples before scaling to larger systems, reducing risk and ensuring the final process is aligned with the intended application.