Can I use Supercritical Fluid to process MY Essential Oil?
Short answer: Yes!
Supercritical fluid is a “tunable” solvent, meaning...
Manipulate the pressure and change the density. Change the density, and you change the solvating power.
Change the solubility characteristics of supercritical CO2 to suit your needs.
Sunflower seeds? Yes. Lavender? Yes.
Vanilla? Yes.
Coffee beans? Yes.
Cinnamon? Yes.
Ginger? Yes.
Jasmine? Yes.
Kava Kava? Yes.
Patchouli? Yes.
Rose Hip Seeds? Yes.
St. John’s Wort? Yes.
…and the list goes on and on.
Supercritical Fluids are environmentally friendly and cost effective, but they can’t possibly work for extracting essential oils, can they?
YES.
Supercritical fluid is an excellent, non-toxic way to replace hexane in your essential oil extraction process. Supercritical fluid can be used at a lower temperature than steam distillation (95 to 100 degrees F vs 140 to 212 degrees F for steam distillation) – perfume extracts will keep their top notes!
We learned in elementary school about water, gas, liquid, and plasma states, but there is another – Supercritical!
Carbon dioxide is in its supercritical fluid state when both the temperature and pressure equal or exceed the critical point of 31°C and 73 atm (see diagram). In its supercritical state, CO2 has both gas-like and liquid-like qualities, and it is this dual characteristic of supercritical fluids that provides the ideal conditions for extracting compounds with a high degree of recovery in a short period of time.
By controlling or regulating pressure and temperature, the density, or solvent strength, of supercritical fluids can be altered to simulate organic solvents ranging from chloroform to methylene chloride to hexane. This dissolving power can be applied to purify, extract, fractionate, infuse, and recrystallize a wide array of materials.
Because CO2 is non-polar, a polar organic co-solvent (or modifier) can be added to the supercritical fluid for processing polar compounds. By controlling the level of pressure/temperature/modifier, supercritical CO2 can dissolve a broad range of compounds, both polar and non-polar.
The use of essential oils has become "essential" for modern living. Essential oils can be primary ingredients in perfumes for cosmetics or soaps and detergents. They form the basis of the spices in our foods. Essential oils are the base for aromatherapy.
What if there was a way to extract essential oils quickly and efficiently, without compromising the quality of the extract? There is. Supercritical carbon dioxide.
With supercritical fluids:
No Solvent residue. No health hazard. Maintains a "natural" state.
Mild Extraction Conditions – 31°C temperature
Fractionation - easy using only CO2 - CO2 is a "tunable solvent" – easily change your temperature/pressure to suit your material
Concrete/Oleoresin
created with Supercritical Fluid Extraction
Supercritical CO2 can also be used in conjunction with more traditional methods such as soaking perfume feedstocks in an organic solvent for a period of time. The organic solvents containing the extracted the perfumes (essential oils) and accompanying waxes is then decanted and evaporated, leaving a concrete. The essential oils can easily be separated from the wax with supercritical CO2. Because of the low temperature, the process gives high recoveries.
Click here to see an example of a supercritical system for the extraction of essential oils.
Short answer: Yes!
Lavender? Yes.
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