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.
In the USA, the textile dyeing industry has invested more than one billion dollars in the past decade on environmental technologies designed to ensure that by-products of textile manufacturing do not pollute the environment.
This investment is paralleled in other parts of the world, notably Taiwan and Korea. Initially, this effort focused on reducing the large quantities of water needed in current processes, for even the most economical use of water requires 100L/kg
material.
Supercritical carbon dioxide is an alternative dyeing technology that eliminates the use of water while achieving results comparable to current dyeing processes. Supercritical CO2 is harmless ecologically, available, non-toxic and non-explosive.
It's not a gas... it's not a liquid... so what does supercritical fluid look like, anyway?
Applied Separations vessels are available with 5-port lids that allow for the addition of a fiber optic probe to view the inside of the vessel during your process.
Spe-ed SFE-4: 4-Vessel Simultaneous Oven-based Extraction System The Applied Separations Spe-ed SFE-4 is a staple of the research lab. The Spe-ed SFE-4 was designed to meet the rigorous needs of day-to-day use in the research lab. It is simple to operate, fast and affordable, with unique features not found in other supercritical fluid systems. The Spe-ed SFE-4 has parallel processing capabilities of up to 4 high pressure vessels.
The system features: • temperatures to 240°C • pressure up to 10,000 psi (680 BAR) • pump flow rates up to 400mL/min • independent control of flow rates to each vessel • fully-adjustable, non-clogging, variable restrictors • parallel processing capabilities of up to 4 vessels from 0.5mL to 1.0L • collection into SPE cartridges or standard glassware • in-line trapping capabilities • modifier addition capability • multiple flow path capability • extract directly from liquid samples
Short answer: Yes!
Lavender? Yes.
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