Supercritical fluid extraction of edible oils

Abstract

© 2014 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Food industry is always looking for processes that can minimize the environmental impact, decrease toxic residues, use by-products more efficiently and also obtain highquality products with good nutritional and organoleptic properties and preserved original ingredients. Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) has attracted considerable attention in recent years as a promising alternative to the conventional solvent extraction and mechanical pressing in food processing as it offers a number of advantages, including the absence of solvent residue and better retention of aromatic compounds. In the last few decades this powerful separation process has drawn an increasing interest in commercial application, particularly due to its technical and environmental advantages compared to the current classical extraction methods by organic solvents. Carbon dioxide (CO2) as an environmentally-friendly solvent is mainly used as the extraction agent in SFE. Extracts obtained using CO2 as the extraction solvent are solvent-free / without any trace of toxic extraction solvents, and are thereby highly valued. SFE is still relatively new and is not widely used on the commercial scale for the extraction of edible oils. This is mainly due to very high investment costs of SFE equipment. But nowadays, according to global trends, "green" products and technologies are needed to replace conventional ones. When considering industrial application, it is essential to providetest the applicability of the appropriate model used for the scale-up of laboratory data to industrial design purposes