Purification of sclareol by supercritical CO2 fractionation process

The implementation and optimization of continuous supercritical CO2 fractionation of a clary sage extract containing 25 wt% of sclareol were performed in order to increase its sclareol content. After preliminary experiments confirming the feasibility of the process, different operating conditions were studied: CO(2-)over-feed mass ratio from 25 up to 115, and pressure between 11 and 13 MPa, with an internal reflux due to a thermal gradient 323-338 K along the column, through an experimental design. Four responses were highlighted: sclareol mass fraction in the raffinate, sclareol mass fraction in the extract, sclareol yield in the raffinate, and the amount of an undesirable compound exhibiting a similar behaviour to sclareol and thus, hard to separate from sclareol by conventional techniques. This work allowed us to highlight the best operating conditions: a pressure of 12.6 MPa and a CO2-over-feed mass ratio of 114.5 leading to a sclareol mass fraction in raffinate and extract of 75.3% and 4.6% respectively, to a sclareol yield of 82.4% in the raffinate, and to an amount of 0.08% of the undesirable compound in the raffinate.

C. Dufour, Christelle Crampon, C. Delbecque, P-P. Garry, Elisabeth Badens. Purification of sclareol by supercritical CO2 fractionation process. Journal of Supercritical Fluids, 2017, 122, pp.35 - 42. ⟨10.1016/j.supflu.2016.12.001⟩. ⟨hal-01596425⟩

Journal: Journal of Supercritical Fluids

Date de publication: 01-04-2017

Auteurs:
  • C. Dufour
  • Christelle Crampon
  • C. Delbecque
  • P-P. Garry
  • Elisabeth Badens

Digital object identifier (doi): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.supflu.2016.12.001

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