Preliminary Investigation for Application of Supercritical Fluid Extraction Technology for Garlic Oil Extraction

Preliminary Investigation for Application of Supercritical Fluid Extraction Technology for Garlic Oil Extraction

Summary

A small&medium farm-oriented supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) system was developed and demonstrated for garlic oil extraction as an example of high value crop plant process. The extraction conditions and operation procedure were suggested as a guideline.

Objectives/Performance Targets

To further optimize SFE kinetics parameters of garlic oil on the basis of on site operation.
To investigate the criteria for developing the small & medium-size farm-adopted SFE equipment.

Accomplishments/Milestones

The self-built SFE system in our lab can be used to extract essential oil from crop plant as demonstrated by garlic oil extraction. 50 g garlic (61% moisture content) in 75 ml extraction cell by 80 minutes hour run at 100ml/min carbon dioxide flow rate can extract 1.8 mg/g fresh garlic allicin in water solution, comparable to water extraction. We have not compared with the reported number of crushed raw garlic contained 3.7 mg/g dry garlic allicin (Lawson et al., 1992), due to different garlic source and storage time.
The flow rate of carbon dioxide affects the extract recovery rate and extraction time. The determination of suitable flow rate is affected by extraction cell volume, loaded sample volume and extraction conditions. For the tested SFE system, one run requires 120 minutes if the flow rate was set at 50 ml/min and 80 minutes (plus 20 minutes loading, unloading and equilibration time) if flow rate was 100 ml/min

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

We developed an easy operated and small&medium farm-oriented SFE equipment and initiated the investigation of its potential application. This small step would be a great contribution to the final extension of this technology on the farm after more work being done in the future.

Collaborators: