Extração do óleo de tucumã-do-Pará (Astrocaryum vulgare) usando CO2 supercrítico visando o aumento de escala

Abstract

With the growing worldwide demand for products and wealth generation, there is a need to invest in new sustainable processes and engineering practices for scale expansion. Thus, the objective of this work was to obtain β-carotene-rich tucumã-do-Pará (Astrocaryum vulgare) oil using supercritical CO2 and to verify the adequacy of two new scale-up equations. Therefore, two isotherms and three pressures (40°C, 60°C, 150bar, 250bar, 400bar) were used. In the condition that presented the highest oil and β-carotene extraction yield, a kinetic study was carried out, followed by the application of a new equation based on Buckingham's π theorem. The highest oil extraction yield (31.49±0.04%) was obtained at 60°C and 400bar with a high concentration of oleic acid, and this yield was similar to the value obtained by soxhlet, which was 32.73±0, 59% oil. The application of the Tukey test (p <0.05) shows that there is no significant difference between the extraction yield obtained in the isotherm of 40 °C and 60 °C in the pressure condition of 400bar. The highest concentration of β-carotene (1351.8±0.02 μg/g) was obtained at 40°C and 400bar, and the solvent density was considered the most significant variable with the greatest influence on β-carotene extraction. The kinetic study carried out with the application of a new mathematical proposal based on the correlation between operational variables (solvent flow, feed mass, height and diameter of the extraction bed), mass transfer mechanism and constancy of the inclination angle of the kinetic curves that , for a solvent flow rate of 10.93 g/min, on the larger scale, the diffusive step controlled the mass transfer mechanism.