Session C11
6124
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SUPERCRITICAL FLUID EXTRACTION OF ESSENTIAL OILS
Madeleine Hamrick, mch59@pitt.edu, Vidic 2:00, Julie Steranka, jms502@pitt.edu, Mahboobin 10:00
Revised Proposal — Supercritical fluid extraction, or SFE,
is currently the main method used for extracting essential
oils. The SFE process has received much attention in recent
years as it offers many more advantages over alternative
methods, such as organic solvent extraction and steam
distillation, for recovering essential oils from plants.
Supercritical fluids for the extraction of essential oils makes
the process faster, easier, and more efficient than previously
used methods. A supercritical fluid is a substance at a
temperature and pressure that is above its critical point
therefore allowing a substance’s liquid and vapor phase to
coexist. The fluids can effuse through solids like a gas and
can dissolve materials like a liquid [1]. This unique
characteristic of supercritical fluids makes them ideal for
extracting oils from dense plant material. Supercritical fluid
extraction is a process of splitting one constituent from
another using supercritical fluid as the extracting solvent.
The extraction of essential oils using supercritical fluids
works by allowing a supercritical fluid to diffuse into plant
materials thus dissolving the material to be extracted, in this
case, the essential oil. The dissolved material can then be
separated from the plant and cooled in order to isolate the
essential oils [2].
The extraction of essential oils has become more dependent
on the use of SFE techniques. This process is significant to
engineers because essential oils play a main role in
pharmaceutical, food and fragrance industries.
For
example, essential oils are key ingredients in medicine,
perfumes, cosmetics, and foods [3]. Chien Qingyong Lang
mentions, “With increasing public interest in natural
products, SFE may become a standard extraction technique
for studying herbal food and agricultural samples” [4]. In
addition, essential oils have many complex components
whose proportions must be maintained during extraction.
Supercritical fluids are an ideal option because they not only
speed up the extraction process, but also keep the
proportions intact [3].
The conference paper will detail what essential oils and
supercritical fluids are, what the process of supercritical
fluid extraction is, and how this process is now used to
extract these oils. It will continue by highlighting the
importance, ethical issues surrounding this topic, and
improvements that could be made. Online journal articles
mentioned in the “Sources Consulted” section will provide
University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering 1
29 January 2016
most of the information. Diagrams and equations will also
be used to clarify this process and its significance.
REFERENCES
[1] V. Krukonis. (1998). “Supercritical Fluids: Their
Proliferation in the Pharma Industry.” Phasex Corporation.
(online article). http://www.phasex4scf.com/supercriticalfluids-applications
[2] S. Hawthorn. (1990). “Analytical –Scale Supercritical
Fluid Extraction.” Analytical Chemistry. (online article).
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac00210a722
[3] S. Pourmortazavi, S. Hajimirsadeghi. (2007).
“Supercritical fluid extraction in plant essential and volatile
oil analysis.” A Journal of Chromatography.. (online article).
DOI:10.1016/j.chroma.2007.06.021
[4] Q. Lang. (2001). “Supercritical fluid extraction in herbal
and natural product studies — a practical review.” Talanta.
DOI:10.1016/S0039-9140(00)00557-9
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
K. Ara, M. Jowkarderis, F. Raofie. (2015). “Optimization
of supercritical fluid extraction of essential oils and fatty
acids from flixweed (Descurainia Sophia L.) seed using
response surface methodology and central composite
design.” SpringerLink. DOI: 10.1007/s13197-014-1353-3
This article, from the Journal of Food Science and
Technology explains in depth the mechanism and procedure
for extracting essential oils using supercritical fluid. It
mentions the many uses of essential oils after they are
isolated.
This article also provides data from
experimentation comparing the yields from different
extraction methods. This article will provide us with factual
data and results to prove SFE as an ideal process of
extraction.
R. Da Silva. (2016). “Supercritical fluid extraction of
bioactive compounds.” TrAC Trends in Analytical
Chemistry. DOI:10.1016/j.trac.2015.11.013.
This article, from a scientific journal about analytical
chemistry explains how supercritical fluid extraction is an
ideal, alternative green technology for extraction methods.
It offers an overview of the application of the process. The
Madeleine Hamrick
Julie Steranka
S. Pourmortazavi, S. Hajimirsadeghi. (2007). “Supercritical
fluid extraction in plant essential and volatile oil analysis.”
A Journal of Chromatography.. (online article).
DOI:10.1016/j.chroma.2007.06.021
This article, from a peer reviewed scientific journal
focusing on chromatography, discusses the factors that affect
SFE. Pressure, quantity, porosity of the plant, and the
solubility of the supercritical fluid can be modified to extract
essential oils from plants. The essential oils are complex
compounds that must stay intact during the extraction. We
will use this article to highlight how the SFE process can be
modified to extract different oils.
article investigates improvements that can be made on the
extraction efficiency and techniques. We will use this
source to detail the improvements that can be made to the
SFE process and its prevalence over other methods.
S. Hawthorn. (1990). “Analytical –Scale Supercritical Fluid
Extraction.” Analytical Chemistry. (online article).
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac00210a722
This article, from the American Chemical Society journal
explains previous methods of extraction using liquid
solvents and their drawbacks.
The article highlights
supercritical fluid as an alternative method of extraction.
The article describes current techniques, applications,
capabilities, and limitations using supercritical fluids in
extraction and recovering organic materials. Information
from this article will help clarify the significance of using
the supercritical fluid method of extraction over other
processes.
M. Zougagh, M. Valcarcel. (2004). “Supercritical fluid
extraction: a critical review of its analytical usefulness.”
TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry. DOI:10.1016/S01659936(04)00524-2
This article, from a scientific journal about analytical
chemistry offers a critical review of the usefulness of the
supercritical fluid extraction process. The article examines
the evolution of the process in the past thirty years. This
article provides reasons for its rare implementations and
proposes ways to overcome the defects behind them. This
article will be used to describe fixes that can be made to
enhance the SFE process.
M.Herrero, J. Mendiola, A. Cifuentes, E. Ibáñez. (2010).
“Supercritical fluid extraction: Recent advances and
applications.” A Journal of Chromatography. (online article).
DOI:10.1016/j.chroma.2009.12.019
This article, from a peer reviewed scientific journal
focusing on chromatography, details how the use of
supercritical fluids is increasing in industries. The main
compound used is carbon dioxide, because it is cheap,
environmentally friendly, and considered safe by the FDA.
It is becoming more extensively used in food and natural
products. This information will help show the rapidly
increasing applications of this process.
V. Krukonis. (1998). “Supercritical Fluids: Their
Proliferation in the Pharma Industry.” Phasex Corporation.
(website). http://www.phasex4scf.com/supercritical-fluidsapplications
This article, from a company’s website that deals with the
application of supercritical fluids, explains the benefits of
using supercritical fluids in the extraction process. Due to
this its solubility property, there is less residue and higher
yields after the process when compared to previously used
methods. We will use this information to describe the
benefits of using highly soluble supercritical fluids.
Q. Lang, C.Wei. (2001). “Supercritical fluid extraction in
herbal and natural product studies — a practical review.”
Talanta. DOI:10.1016/S0039-9140(00)00557-9
This article, from a peer reviewed international journal
about analytical chemistry, describes the benefits of using
SFE such as high viscosity and easy manipulations. It also
describes how the process is performed and can be modified
to be selective. This article will be used to explain the
process of SFE and how it can be altered to obtain certain
essential oils.
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