The antioxidant properties of both encapsulated and non-encapsulated astaxanthin has been verified by various methods. Generally astaxanthin is considered as a powerful antioxidant compound when compared with other carotenoids. Encapsulation was carried out using sodium alginate, chitosan, Tripoly Phosphate (TPP) and liposomes. In our preliminary work, the encapsulated astaxanthin was synthesized by different methods and characterized. Further it mooted to study the antioxidant properties and radical scavenging. All the methods showed very good antioxidant activity for Microencapsulated method 4 (ME 4) (i.e liposomal encapsulated astaxanthin) when compared with non-encapsulated astaxanthin and other methods of encapsulation. Standard drug such as ascorbic acid, Gallic acid and BHT were used against the test samples to confirm the good antioxidant activity. Thus, it is concluded that both encapsulated and non-encapsulated astaxanthin showed better antioxidant activity than standard drug. Hence, it can be further explored for other pharmacological studies.
