Supercritical carbon dioxide technology for lipids and nutraceuticals

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The proposed research program focuses on the applications of supercritical fluid technology to Canada's natural biological resources to obtain high quality value-added products without the use of organic solvents. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the supercritical fluid of choice for food applications. CO2 becomes supercritical (SC) at temperature and pressure conditions above its critical point (31 C, 7.4 MPa). Following extraction, CO2 separates as a gas upon pressure reduction leaving no solvent residue in the extracted product. This is especially important in the rapidly growing field of nutraceuticals since the consumers are demanding "natural" extracts. Recently, there has been a tremendous growth in the supercritical fluid extraction of such health benefiting components from various plant materials at industrial scale. Development of technology through better understanding of the fundamental principles governing this process and evaluation of the products are the main focus of this research program. The use of supercritical fluids in this program involves the unit operations of extraction, fractionation, reactions and particle formation applied to lipids and nutraceuticals. The next phase of our research will focus on enhancing our understanding of fundamentals in terms of solubility and melting behavior of lipids/nutraceuticals in the presence of high pressure CO2. As well, various physical properties necessary for engineering modeling will be determined. A major focus will be particle formation techniques targeting micro/nano encapsulated particles to design novel delivery systems for nutraceuticals targeting different functional food formulations. Novel process development will be continued with combinations of extractor, fractionation column, reactors and nozzles for particle formation to obtain high-value products. The nutraceuticals of interest are omega-3 fatty acids, conjugated linoleic acid, phytosterols, tocopherols and carotenoids, which have been demonstrated to be beneficial against cardiovascular heart diseases and cancer.