Development of florasol extraction process for cedar oil

这个Engage Plus项目将在UWO的Charpentier实验室和All Natural Products Inc.之间进行，All Natural Products Inc.是一家专注于安大略省博尔顿精油开采的加拿大公司。在我们之前的Engage项目中，我们建立了一个小规模的间歇提取系统(100毫升)，以考察使用氟罗拉索尔共溶剂(H134a)提取雪松油的情况。考察了压力、温度、提取时间、剂样比、雪松叶粉碎或切碎、干燥或新鲜叶等条件对雪松精油得率的影响。采用GC-FID和GC-MS对雪松挥发油的两种主要成分胡芦酮和薄荷酮的含量进行了分析。结果表明，用R134a提取氟罗拉索是一种可行的方法，与水蒸气蒸馏相比，可以提供更高的油得率和更好的精油比例。Engage Plus项目将专注于在7L提取系统中检查这一提取过程，这将更密切地检查潜在的商业系统。将检验实验设计(DOE)方法，以将最佳条件与先前在小批量系统中检验的那些条件进行比较。此外，还将研究各种工艺参数，包括溶剂回收和萃取篮动态，包括托盘如何放置以及每个托盘上可以放置多少切碎的雪松以优化传质。该项目的目标是表明氟拉索提取的可行性，并确定潜在商业采用的最佳参数。

This Engage Plus project will be between the Charpentier lab at UWO and All Natural Products Inc., who are a Canadian company focused on essential oil extraction in Bolton, Ontario. In our previous Engage project we setup a small scale batch extraction system (100 ml) to examine the extraction of cedar oil using floralsol co-solvent (H134a). The yield of cedar essential oil was investigated under various conditions of pressure, temperature, extraction time, solvent-to-sample ratio, ground or chopped cedar leaves, and dried or fresh leaves. The extracted oil was analyzed using GC-FID and GC-MS for thujone and fenchone content which are the two main components of cedar. The results showed that florasol extraction using R134a is a viable approach, providing significantly higher yields of oil and a better ratio of essential oils than steam distillation. The Engage Plus project will focus on examining this extraction process in a 7L extraction system, which will more closely examine a potential commercial system. A design of experiment (DOE) approach will be examined to compare optimum conditions to those previously examined in the small batch system. In addition, various process parameters will be examined including solvent recycle and how extraction basket dynamics including how trays are positioned and how much chopped cedar can be placed on each to optimize mass transfer. The goal of the project is to indicate the feasibility of florasol extraction and to determine the optimum parameters for potential commercial adoption.