In this work, the process design and the economic feasibility of natural astaxanthin extraction from Haematococcus pluvialis species have been reported. Complete process drawing of the process was first performed, and then the process was designed including five main steps being the harvesting process, the cell disruption, the spray drying, the supercritical CO2 extraction and the anaerobic digestion. The major components of the facility would include sedimentation tanks, a disk stack centrifuge, a bed miller, a spray dryer, a multistage compressor, an extractor, a pasteurizer and a digester. All units have been sized assuming a 10 kg/h of dried biomass as a feedstock to produce nearly 2592 kg of astaxanthin per year. The investment payback time and the return on investment were all estimated for different market prices of astaxanthin. Based on the results the production process was found to become economically feasible for a market price higher than 1500$/Kg. Also, a payback period of 1 year and an ROI equal to 113% was estimated for an astaxanthin market price equal to 6000$/Kg.
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