Tuberose concrete fractionation by supercritical carbon dioxide

Supercritical CO2 extraction was used to postprocess a solid tuberose extract that was produced by liquid solvent extraction. The optimum extraction conditions to produce the tuberose volatile oil were found operating at 80 bar and 40 degrees C. At these conditions no undesired compounds have been coextracted except waxes. These latter compounds have been eliminated by adopting a stagewise separation procedure consisting of two separators operated in series. The first separator was set at 80 bar and -5 degrees C to allow the precipitation of waxes. The second separator operated at 15 bar and 0 degrees C to recover tuberose volatile compounds. The oil yield was 24% by weight of the charged material. The process evolution has been monitored by performing GC-MS analysis of the extracts. A large modification in the composition of tuberose volatile oil has been observed with the increase of the extraction time.