National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN 18206:2026.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 30 September 2026.

This European Standard was approved by CEN on 19 July 2026.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

This document (EN 18206:2026) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 454 “Algae and algae products”, the secretariat of which is held by NEN.

This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by March 2027, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by March 2027.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

This document has been prepared under a standardization request addressed to CEN by the European Commission.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN website.

According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organisations of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

Introduction

This document has been prepared by the experts of CEN/TC 454 'Algae and algae products'.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) was requested by the European Commission (EC) to draft European standards or European standardization deliverables to support the implementation of Article 3 of Directive 2009/28/EC for algae and algae-based products or intermediates.

This request, presented as Mandate M/5471, also contributes to the Communication on “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bio economy for Europe”.

The former working group CEN Technical Board Working Group 218 “Algae”, was created in 2016 to develop a work programme as part of this Mandate. The technical committee CEN/TC 454 'Algae and algae products' was established to carry out the work programme that will prepare a series of standards.

The interest in algae and algae-based products or intermediates has increased significantly in Europe as a valuable source including but not limited to, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and several pigments. These materials are suitable for use in a wide range of applications from food and feed purposes to other sectors, such as textile, cosmetics, biopolymers, biofuel and fertilizer/biostimulants. Standardization was identified as having an important role in order to promote the use of algae and algae products.

The work of CEN/TC 454 should improve the reliability of the supply chain, thereby improving the confidence of industry and consumers in algae, which include macroalgae, microalgae, cyanobacteria, Labyrinthulomycetes, algae-based products or intermediates and will promote and support commercialisation of the European algae industry.

Given the importance of carotenoids in algae and algae products, it is important to have a good standardized method to determine the amount of the carotenoids. Since there are a lot of carotenoids, only the determination of beta-carotene and fucoxanthin is incorporated in this document.

1 Scope

This document specifies a laboratory method for the determination of the carotenoid content in microalgae. This method is based on the principles of chlorophyll a determination described in EN 18034. This method has been validated for the microalgae species Nannochloropsis and Phaodactylum. This document is only validated for betacarotene and fucoxanthin, but could be used for other carotenoids as well. Given small adaptations to be able to measure smaller concentrations, this method could also be used for macro algae.

NOTE This method has been validated in an interlaboratory study for the following carotenoids for levels of approximately 0,1 to 10 mg/g by weight:

− Beta-carotene;

− fucoxanthin.

For the validation, the following matrices were used:

− Nannochloropsis sp.;

− Phaedactylum.

For detailed information on the validation, see 9.2 and Annex B. Additionally, lutein was tested and Saccharina latissima was used as an additional matrix. However, these results could not be validated. The results of these studies have been included in informative Annex C.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Principle

5 Apparatus

5.1

5.2

5.3 Centrifuge.

5.4 Vortex.

5.5 Spectrophotometer.

5.6 Fume hood.

6 Reagents and materials

6.1 HPLC reagents

6.2 HPLC column

6.3

6.4 Micropipettes

6.5 Pasteur pipettes

6.6 HPLC vials and caps

6.7

6.8

6.9 Quartz cuvettes

6.10

6.11 Aluminium foil

7 Sampling and preparation of the sample

7.1 Sampling

7.2 Sample treatment

8 Procedure

8.1 Extraction

8.2 Determination of the concentration of carotenoid standards

8.3 Preparation of the calibration curve

8.4 Quality assurance and quality control equipment

8.5 HPLC analysis

9 Calculation of carotenoid concentration

9.1 General

9.2 Interlaboratory reproducibility

10 Test Report

Bibliography