Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of Baizhu: Experiments and modeling

In this work, supercritical CO2 extraction has been carried out on a traditional Chinese herb of Baizhu under pressure of 15–45 MPa, temperature of 40–60 °C, mean powder size of 0.167–0.675 mm, and extraction time of up to 180 min. The maximum extraction yield obtained in 5 h is about 6.76 × 10−2 g per gram raw materials at 60 °C and 45 MPa. The extraction process is correlated by means of five different mathematical models. The evaluation of these models against experimental data shows that among these models the Sovová model performs the best with an overall average absolute relative deviation of 1.62%, followed by Crank and Naik models, finally the Barton and Martínez models. From the Sovová model, the mass transfer coefficient in solid or fluid are obtained and they are varying in the ranges of 4.02–6.14 × 10−8 m/s and 0.88–2.87 × 10−9 m/s, respectively. These results suggest that solute diffusion in solid matrices and solute mass transfer in fluid are both important in affecting the supercritical CO2 extraction process of Baizhu.