Supercritical carbon dioxide technology for lipids and nutraceuticals

拟议的研究计划重点是将超临界流体技术应用于加拿大的自然生物资源，在不使用有机溶剂的情况下获得高质量的附加值产品。二氧化碳(CO2)是食品应用的首选超临界流体。当温度和压力超过其临界点(31摄氏度，7.4兆帕)时，二氧化碳变为超临界(SC)。萃取后，二氧化碳在压力降低时以气体的形式分离，在萃取产品中没有溶剂残留。这一点在快速增长的营养食品领域尤为重要，因为消费者要求的是“天然”提取物。最近，超临界流体从各种植物材料中提取对健康有益的成分的工业规模有了巨大的增长。通过更好地了解指导这一过程的基本原则和对产品的评估来开发技术是本研究计划的主要重点。本项目中超临界流体的使用涉及应用于油脂和保健食品的提取、分级、反应和颗粒形成的单元操作。我们下一阶段的研究将集中于加强我们对脂类/营养食品在高压二氧化碳存在下的溶解度和熔化行为方面的基本原理的理解。此外，还将确定工程建模所需的各种物理属性。一个主要的焦点将是针对微/纳米包裹的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食品的新型递送系统。将继续开发新的工艺，结合萃取器、分馏塔、反应器和喷嘴形成颗粒，以获得高价值的产品。令人感兴趣的营养食品是omega-3脂肪酸、共轭亚油酸、植物甾醇、生育酚和类胡萝卜素，已被证明对心血管疾病和癌症有益。

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.