Supercritical carbon dioxide technology for lipids and nutraceuticals

拟开展的研究项目重点是将超临界流体技术应用于加拿大天然生物资源，在不使用有机溶剂的情况下获得高质量的增值产品。二氧化碳（CO2）是食品应用的首选超临界流体。当温度和压力高于临界点（31℃，7.4 MPa）时，二氧化碳变成超临界（SC）。萃取后，CO2在减压后作为气体分离，萃取产物中没有溶剂残留。这在快速发展的营养保健品领域尤其重要，因为消费者要求“天然”提取物。近年来，在工业规模上从各种植物材料中超临界流体萃取这些有益健康的成分有了巨大的增长。通过更好地理解控制这一过程和产品评估的基本原则来开发技术是本研究计划的主要重点。在本课程中，超临界流体的使用包括萃取、分馏、反应和颗粒形成等单元操作，应用于脂类和营养品。我们下一阶段的研究将集中在提高我们对脂类/营养保健品在高压CO2存在下的溶解度和熔化行为的基础知识的理解。此外，还将确定工程建模所需的各种物理性质。一个主要的焦点将是针对微/纳米封装颗粒的颗粒形成技术，以设计针对不同功能食品配方的营养保健品的新型输送系统。新的工艺开发将继续与萃取器，分馏塔，反应器和喷嘴的组合颗粒形成，以获得高价值的产品。我们感兴趣的营养保健品是omega-3脂肪酸、共轭亚油酸、植物甾醇、生育酚和类胡萝卜素，它们已被证明对心血管、心脏病和癌症有益。

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.