A new design of a multi-purpose plant for extraction of liquids with supercritical fluids

As reported in a lot of reviews, extractions with supercritical solvents have a very promising commercial potential, Until now the commercialization is mainly restricted to batchwise extraction of solids with carbon dioxide (e.g. decaffeination of coffee and tea, extraction of hop). Laboratory experiments and operation of small-scale pilot plants gave favourable economic values for continuous extraction of liquids with CO2 and other gases. Only a few extractions with CO2 or C3H8 are performed already on a small industrial scale. For research purposes and product development a new high pressure counter-current extraction plant was erected. To get greater amounts of product the explosionproof plant was constructed in pilot scale using a special modular concept and an effective visual control system.