Performance of reverse osmosis membranes in the separation of supercritical CO2 and essential oils

Separation of n-butane from soybean oil mixtures using membrane processes

“…Degumming and solvent recovery are the most studied process, since they are the most energy-consuming steps in the oil processing industry [1][2][3][4][5][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. One should call attention at this point that in the extraction process using compressed fluids, membrane separation could be advantageously used for minimizing solvent recompression costs [25,26].…”

Purification of structured lipids using SCCO2 and membrane process

“…The combination of extraction with SCCO 2 and membrane separation allows the obtention of extracted fractions with a narrow range of molecular weights [14]. This combination has been investigated for the fractionation of triacylglycerols, for the extraction and purification of carotenoids, and for the separation of essential oils [14][15][16][17]. After extraction with SCF, costs for recompression of gas to the liquid phase or to the supercritical phase are high, and the combination with the membrane separation process allows the retention of the solutes extracted, and permeation of the SCF with a low pressure drop, leading to a reduction in energy and costs during recompression [14,16].…”

Supercritical Carbon Dioxide and Subcritical Water: Complementary Agents in the Processing of Functional Foods

“…A number of studies have been conducted in tandem processing with membranes after an extraction and/or as a stand-alone separation system to increase the separation efficiency of components extracted into SC-CO 2 . In one such study, reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were employed for the separation of essential oils from natural products such as orange, lemon grass and nutmegs after extraction using SC-CO 2 at 12 MPa and 40 • C (Sarmento et al 2004). In this study, close to 90% of the theoretical essential oils was obtained.…”