Extraction of Natural Vitamin E from Wheat Germ by Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

An efficient supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) process with carbon dioxide (SFE-CO(2)) was developed for the extraction of natural vitamin E (V(E)) from wheat germ. Both the pretreatment of extracted wheat germ and extraction conditions were optimized to ensure maximal V(E) yield. The extraction was undertaken at the extracting pressure of 4000-5000 psi, the extracting temperature of 40-45 degrees C, and the carbon dioxide flow rate of 2.0 mL/min for 90 min. An optimized pretreatment of wheat germ was usually necessary with a particle size of 30 mesh and a moisture content of 5.1%. A yield comparison of V(E) and its isomers extracted by supercritical CO(2) with those by conventional solvent extraction suggested that this SFE process was a practical process prospectively superior to conventional solvent extraction to prepare V(E) from wheat germ.

Quality of wheat germ oil obtained by cold pressing and supercritical carbon dioxide extraction

“…This is because the proper amount of water can facilitate the penetration and diffusion of supercritical CO 2 into the tissues of wheat germ and promote oil extraction. A similar phenomenon was found by Ge et al (2002).…”

Optimization and evaluation of wheat germ oil extracted by supercritical CO₂

“…Moisture, protein, fat, ash, fiber and total sugar of the defatted meal samples were further. Aside from the SFE condition, the material pretreatment such as water content and particle size are important factors which influence the extract yield (Ge et al, 2002). The evaluation of oils and defatted wheat germ obtained from SFE and SE is essential to study the relative merits of these techniques.…”

“…Therefore SFE has received increased attention as a promising alternative to conventional extraction methods over the last decades. There are several reports on the extraction of oil (Panfili et al, 2003;Shao et al, 2008;Zacchi et al, 2006), tocopherol (Ge et al, 2002) and antioxidants (Gelmez et al, 2009) from wheat germ by SFE. The effect of temperature, pressure and CO 2 flow rate on oil yield (Shao et al, 2008), as well as the effect of pressure, temperature and extraction time on the antioxidant (phenolics and tocopherols) purity of the extracts obtained from roasted wheat germ have been studied.…”

Synthesis of Vitamin E Novel Analogues as Anti-Cancer Compounds

“…Vitamin E is a naturally occurring preservative found in vegetable oil, especially in wheat germ oil (25,26). Vitamin E is a very important biological antioxidant and it is generally accepted that its most effective component is α-tocopherol.…”