Extraction of raw plant material using supercritical carbon dioxide

• Autor(a) principal: Carvalho, Tiago Manuel Jesus
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/61273
• topic: Supercritical Fluid Extraction; safrole; berberine; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Química

Many of the herbs and spices used by humans are important medicinal compounds. The aim of this work is to investigate the extraction mechanisms of plant materials by using supercritical fluid extraction (SFE). In order to do this, a supercritical extraction system was designed and set-up allowing to use supercritical CO2 for the extraction of raw plant material, such as Sassafras albidum and Berberis vulgaris. The planned work found difficulties due to legal problems and the objective plant material had to be changed for this reason. The first plant considered was Sassafras albidum which later on was changed to Berberis vulgaris. Supercritical extraction in dynamic and steady state were executed in order to study the extraction parameters and attempt to recover a compound called berberine. The results of the experiments show that supercritical fluid extraction is a sufficient extraction method for the plant Berberis vulgaris. On the other hand, it was not possible to apply any analytical methods to prove that berberine was obtained since the amount of extract was not sufficient for the techniques available. Even so, physical properties such as smell and yellow color of the extract suggested that berberine might have been extracted. The whole designed supercritical extraction process needs improvements such as the introduction of organic solvents to increase the extraction yield and the introduction of an alternative analytical protocol such as High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).