Critical review of supercritical fluid extraction of selected spice plant materials

Abstract

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is one of the relatively new efficient separation method for the extraction of essential oils from different plant materials. The new products, extracts, can be used as a good base for the production of pharmaceutical drugs and additives in the perfume, cosmetic, and food industries. The aim of this work was to analyze the supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SC-CO2) of oils from the selected spice plant materials. In this paper the process parameters such as pressure, temperature, solvent flow rate, size of grinding materials, and ratio of the co-solvent were presented for the selected spice plant materials: black pepper, caraway, celery, cinnamon, clove, coriander, daphne, fennel, ginger, hyssop, juniper, lavender, oregano, pennyroyal, red pepper, safflower, sage, turmeric, and vanilla. The values of operating conditions were: pressure from 7.5 to 68 MPa, temperature from 293 to 363 K, solvent flow rate from 0.003 to 30.0 kg/h, and diameter of grinding material from 0.17 to 3.90 mm. The global yield and quality of the extracts all of the plant material investigated, as well as the possibility of their application in the food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries were analyzed. The composition of the extracts was wery complex, and in every case the extract was composed of more than 200 components. All the compounds from the CO2 extracts were classified in the following groups: monoterpene, sesquiterpene, oxygenated monoterpene, and oxygenated sesquiterpene and other hydrocarbon groups. In some of the systems investigated the different mathematical models (Sovová, Hong), which have taken from the literature, were used to correlate the experimental data.