Compressed fluids application in the extraction of waxes from sunflower seeds-ISNB: 978-0-9818936-4-8

BAÜMLER, ERICA; MABE, GUILLERMO; BRIGNOLE, ESTEBAN; CARRIN, M.E.; CARELLI, AMALIA

Phoenix, Arizon

Congreso; 101st AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo; 2010

America Oil Chemists Society

Several investigations have been made in recent years on probable industrial applications of the compressed and liquefied fluids to diverse separation problems. Non-toxic gases as dioxide of carbon applied at conditions near to their critical point are able to dissolve non volatile substances at relatively low temperatures. The aim of this work was to investigate the viability of using high-pressure liquid solvents as dioxide of carbon, Propane, and their mixture, in the extraction of waxes from whole sunflower seeds. Oils from the treated seeds were extracted by soxhlet extraction using hexane. Oil wax contents were determined by separation with a silicagel chromatographic column and analysis by GC. Extracted oil belonging to the seeds tried with CO2 showed a crystallized wax content (C44-C46-C48) lower than 3% than the initial content, while the achieved reduction ascended to 31% when Propane was used. Propane is considered a green solvent but it is flammable. For this reason, assays using a non-flammable mixture (20% CO2 and 80% Propane) were made; in this case, the reduction in the crystallized wax content was of 12%. Removed materials from different assays were also analyzed. They consisted mainly on C42-C52 waxes with a higher percentage of the crystallized waxes of 44, 46, and 48 carbon numbers.