Supercritical fluid extraction

Abstract: Many organic solvents evaporate into the atmosphere with detrimental effects on the environment and human health. But room-temperature ionic liquids, with low viscosity and no measurable vapour pressure1, can be used as environmentally benign media for a range of industrially important chemical processes2,3,4,5,6, despite uncertainties about thermal stability and sensitivity to oxygen and water. It is difficult to recover products, however, as extraction with water7 works only for hydrophilic products, distillation is not suitable for poorly volatile or thermally labile products, and liquid-liquid extraction using organic solvents results in cross-contamination. We find that non-volatile organic compounds can be extracted from ionic liquids using supercritical carbon dioxide, which is widely used to extract large organic compounds with minimal pollution8. Carbon dioxide dissolves in the liquid to facilitate extraction, but the ionic liquid does not dissolve in carbon dioxide, so pure product can be recovered.

Abstract: Hydrothermal technologies are broadly defined as chemical and physical transformations in high-temperature (200–600 °C), high-pressure (5–40 MPa) liquid or supercritical water. This thermochemical means of reforming biomass may have energetic advantages, since, when water is heated at high pressures a phase change to steam is avoided which avoids large enthalpic energy penalties. Biological chemicals undergo a range of reactions, including dehydration and decarboxylation reactions, which are influenced by the temperature, pressure, concentration, and presence of homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysts. Several biomass hydrothermal conversion processes are in development or demonstration. Liquefaction processes are generally lower temperature (200–400 °C) reactions which produce liquid products, often called “bio-oil” or “bio-crude”. Gasification processes generally take place at higher temperatures (400–700 °C) and can produce methane or hydrogen gases in high yields.

Abstract: Various novel techniques including ultrasound-assisted extraction, microwave-assisted extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, and accelerated solvent extraction have been developed for the extraction of nutraceuticals from plants in order to shorten the extraction time, decrease the solvent consumption, increase the extraction yield, and enhance the quality of extracts. A critical review was conducted to introduce and compare the conventional Soxhlet extraction and the new alternative methods used for the extraction of nutraceuticals from plants. The practical issues of each extraction method were discussed. Potential uses of those methods for the extraction of nutraceuticals from plant materials was finally summarized.

Abstract: As particle design is presently a major development of supercritical fluids applications, mainly in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic and specialty chemistry industries, number of publications are issued and numerous patents filed every year. This document presents a survey (that cannot pretend to be exhaustive!) of published knowledge classified according to the different concepts currently used to manufacture particles, microspheres or microcapsules, liposomes or other dispersed materials (like microfibers): RESS: This acronym refers to ‘Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions’; this process consists in solvating the product in the fluid and rapidly depressurizing this solution through an adequate nozzle, causing an extremely rapid nucleation of the product into a highly dispersed material. Known for long, this process is attractive due to the absence of organic solvent use; unfortunately, its application is restricted to products that present a reasonable solubility in supercritical carbon dioxide (low polarity compounds). GAS or SAS: These acronyms refer to ‘Gas (or Supercritical fluid) Anti-Solvent’, one specific implementation being SEDS (‘Solution Enhanced Dispersion by Supercritical Fluids’); this general concept consists in decreasing the solvent power of a polar liquid solvent in which the substrate is dissolved, by saturating it with carbon dioxide in supercritical conditions, causing the substrate precipitation or recrystallization. According to the solid morphology that is wished, various ways of implementation are available: GAS or SAS recrystallization: This process is mostly used for recrystallization of solid dissolved in a solvent with the aim of obtaining either small size particles or large crystals, depending on the growth rate controlled by the anti-solvent pressure variation rate; ASES: This name is rather used when micro- or nano-particles are expected; the process consists in pulverizing a solution of the substrate(s) in an organic solvent into a vessel swept by a supercritical fluid; SEDS: A specific implementation of ASES consists in co-pulverizing the substrate(s) solution and a stream of supercritical carbon dioxide through appropriate nozzles. PGSS: This acronym refers to ‘Particles from Gas-Saturated Solutions (or Suspensions)’: This process consists in dissolving a supercritical fluid into a liquid substrate, or a solution of the substrate(s) in a solvent, or a suspension of the substrate(s) in a solvent followed by a rapid depressurization of this mixture through a nozzle causing the formation of solid particles or liquid droplets according to the system. The use of supercritical fluids as chemical reaction media for material synthesis. Two processes are described: thermal decomposition in supercritical fluids and hydrothermal synthesis. We will successively detail the literature and patents for these four main process concepts, and related applications that have been claimed. Moreover, as we believe it is important to take into account the user's point-of-view, we will also present this survey in classifying the documents according three product objectives: particles (micro- or nano-) of a single component, microspheres and microcapsules of mixtures of active and carrier (or excipient) components, and particle coating.