ABSTRACT
The use of extraction within the food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries is an active subject in research and development. Existing extraction technologies require up to 50% of a company’s investment capital in new plants and more than 70% of total energy in food, ™ne chemical, and pharmaceutical industrial processes. They also present considerable technological and scienti™c bottlenecks that need to be overcome when attempting to develop new extraction techniques. There is also a need to reduce the energy consumption of extraction processes. This has been caused by increasing energy prices and the drive to reduce CO2 emissions and eliminate wastewater in order to keep plants in line with environmental restrictions. It is important to meet stringent legal requirements on product safety (hazard analysis and critical control point) and process control (hazard analysis and operability). Another driving force is the need to increase quality as well as functionality to reduce costs and improve competitiveness.
