eng Oriental Scientific Publishing Company Biosciences Biotechnology Research Asia 0973-1245 2013-06-28 10 1 10.13005/bbra/1094 9916 article Shahla Namazkar 1 Wan Azlina Ahmad 1 Faculty of Chemistry, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru 81310 Johor, Malaysia. Encapsulation technique via spray drying can be employed to enhance the natural pigment’s properties. In this study, spray-dried microparticles containing red pigment (prodigiosin) extracted from Serratia marcescens was produced using k-carrageenan and maltodextrin as encapsulation agents. The effect of spray-drying parameters on the encapsulation yield (EY), particle size and color intensity of the prodigiosin microcapsules were studied. The most intense color was obtained at a 1:1 ratio (volume ratio of prodigiosin in ethyl acetate to k-carrageenan solution) with a 200oC inlet temperature, a feed flow rate of 60 m3/h, a pressure of 1.5 bars and a feed rate of 3 mL/min. The characterization of spray-dried prodigiosin using FTIR and FESEM confirmed that the particles were properly coated with encapsulating agents and pigment morphology showed that the particles were regular shaped spheres. The results suggest that the spray-dried prodigiosin can be useful as a colorant under the above optimum operating conditions. https://www.biotech-asia.org/vol10no1/spray-dried-prodigiosin-from-serratia-marcescens-as-a-colorant/ Encapsulation; pigment; spray drying; prodigiosin; colorant