Kinetic behavior and economic evaluation of supercritical fluid extraction of oil from pequi (Caryocar brasiliense) for various grinding times and solvent flow rates

This paper presents the techno-economic influence of grinding time (GT) (10 s-90 s) and CO2 flow rate (FR) (1.08 x 10(-4)-2.17 x 10(-4) kg/s) on the supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) performance of oil from pequi (Caryocar brasiliense) under 60 degrees C and 40 MPa. Then, in the economic approach, the best extraction curves were described in terms of Cost of Manufacturing (COM) in the laboratory scale for each combination of GT and FR for selecting the suitable mass to feed mass ratio (S/F) that yielded the lowest COM and the highest productivity. Thereafter, with this S/F, eight scenarios were tested in pilot (100 L) and industrial (500 L) scales with CO2 recycle, which included the purchase cost of pequi and acquisition cost of equipment. Within these eight scenarios tested, the most promising one indicated a COM of only US$ 37.03/kg pequi oil, whereas approximately 85% of the COM is dependent on the purchase cost of pequi and other raw materials (e.g., CO2).