Enhancement of the efficiency of countercurrent near-critical fluid extraction by pressure pulsation

Abstract

The effect of pressure pulsation on the separation of a mixture of glycerides of oleic acid by means of near-critical fluid extraction was investigated. A mixture of carbon dioxide and propane was used as the supercritical extracting agent. The efficiency of a Sulzer wire mesh packing type CY was enhanced by a factor of about three using a pressure amplitude of 14 bar and a pulsation frequency of 32 strokes/min. The influence of the pulsation frequency on the column efficiency is more pronounced than that of the pulsation amplitude.