Supercritical fluid extraction has the great advantage of low energy cost, high yield, superior quality (since a lower extraction temperature range is used), absence of potentially explosive or toxic solvents, and absence of toxic by-products.
A basis for many supercritical fluid process is that the solubility of a dissolved compound is a strong function of pressure and temperature near the solvent’s critical point.
The large change in solubility simply reflects the large change in density, or solubility, which characterizes the solvent strength.
Supercritical fluid extraction has been used for a long time in the food industry.
It has been applied to delipidation of protein, deoiling of lecithin, isolation of important oils, fractionation of butterfat, decaffeination of coffee, oil extraction from oil seeds, removal of bitter aroma compounds from hops, extraction of spices, and removal of cholesterol from different foods.
Supercritical fluid extraction
