Extraction of pure lycopene from industrial tomato by-products in water using a new high pressure process

Lycopene, a precursor of beta-carotene with a well-known antioxidant activity, contained in many natural products such as tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), watermelon, red pepper and papaya, is usually recovered from natural vegetal sources using organic solvents and a purification step. In this paper an innovative process for the extraction of pure lycopene from tomato waste in water that uses the Naviglio (R) extractor and water as extracting phase is presented