High Pressure Phase Equilibrium Engineering

NICOLÁS GAÑAN; PABLO HEGEL; SELVA PEREDA; ESTEBAN A. BRIGNOLE

High Pressure Fluid Technology for Green Food Processing

Springer International Publishing Switzerland

Año: 2015; p. 43 - 77

Green Chemistry principles call for the use of renewable resources, less waste and environmentally friendly solvents (EFS). Among EFS increasingly attention is given to supercritical fluids (SCF). A field that has numerous SCF applications is that related to natural products processing, which is growing driven by the fact that biomass is renewable and nature can produce many complex molecules in a highly efficient way. In the present chapter an introduction to SCF technologies applied to food additives and bioactive compounds is presented. Thereafter,(coma) the thermodynamic modeling of phase equilibrium of natural products with supercritical fluids is summarized. The effects of molecular size and molecular interactions on the type of binaries phase equilibria is discussed on the basis of the classification of van Konynenburg and Scott as well as the phase scenarios found in processing of natural products with supercritical fluids. A phase equilibrium engineering approach is used to design the phase conditions that meet the separation process goal. This approach is illustrated with two case studies: fractionation of bioactive compounds and extraction of jojoba oil with near critical mixed-solvents.