VII Iberoamerican Conference on Phase equilibria for Process Design

Morelia, Michoacan (MEXICO), October 21 – 25, 2006

 

Plenary Lecture
"Production of vegetable extracts by supercritical fluid extraction: process design data"
M. Angela A. Meireles

LASEFI – LA boratory of S upercritical Technology: E xtraction, F ractionation and I dentification of Vegetable Extracts

FEA – College of Food Engineering/ UNICAMP – State University of Campinas

Rua Monteiro Lobato, 80; CEP 13083-862, Campinas, SP - Brazil

Abstract

Because of the today's pursuit for health products the production of vegetable extracts by supercritical fluid extraction is an area of industrial interest. Nonetheless, the relatively high investment costs associated with high-pressure processes are responsible for the elimination of this technology at the very early stages of process design, that is, during the selection of the extraction process. In order to avoid this, a preliminary analysis of the cost of manufacturing must be done with a minimum of experimental information. Thus, a simple method to estimate the cost of manufacturing of extracts by supercritical fluid technology is needed. In this talk, we will present a rapid method to estimate the cost of manufacturing of extracts using supercritical fluid extraction that may accelerate the adoption of SFE as an alternative among the various extraction techniques. The required information will be discussed based on the extraction kinetics, the extracts' functional properties, and phase equilibria. The method will be illustrated by calculating the cost of manufacturing of various essential oils.