ABSTRACT
Supercritical extraction and pressurized extraction fi nd several applications in food and food-related industries. Thus, in Section 6.1 the fundamentals of supercritical fl uid extraction (SFE) from solid matrices will be discussed. In Section 6.2 a review of the literature is focused on obtaining antioxidants by both SFE and hot water extraction (HWE). In Sections 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5 three applications of supercritical fl uids will be discussed: (i) the processing of cashew nuts, (ii) the fractionation of orange volatile oil, and (iii) the improvement of the quality of soluble coffee aroma. Finally, in Section 6.6 the same methodology used in Chapters 2 and 4 to estimate the cost of manufacturing of extracts from aromatic, condimentary, and medicinal plants is presented and applied to obtaining extracts from clove buds and ginger. As in Chapters 2, 3, and 5, the mass transfer and the phase equilibria that govern the extraction and fractionation process are discussed. Section 6.3 gives an in-depth view of cashew processing as well as the phase equilibria involved in fractionating the valuable cashew products. Section 6.4 presents the fundamentals for the fractionation of orange volatile oil using adsorption/desorption; the phase equilibria involved in these processes are discussed. Section 6.5 gives a nice example of using adsorption/desorption at high pressure to improve the soluble coffee aroma. There are several other applications of supercritical and pressurized solvents in food and food-related industries; in Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Nutraceuticals and Bioactive Compounds, edited by J. L. Martínez (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2008), other applications of supercritical fl uids in food and food-related industries can be found.
