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A group of 14 different bio-sourced, renewable feedstocks (homoserine, 1; glutamic acid, 2; aspartic acid, 3; 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid, 4; fumaric acid, 5; oxalacetic acid, 6; tartaric acid, 7; malic acid, 8; succinic acid, 9; levulinic acid, 10; g-hydroxybutyrolactone, 11; xylitol, … Continue reading →

From the point of view of Green Chemistry, polymer-based catalysts are very environmentally friendly. These catalysts can be used and recycled in green solvents such as liquid polymers and supercritical carbon dioxide. They can also be very selective.  In our … Continue reading →

Production of cleaner fuels from increasingly low-grade feedstocks and non-edible biomass sources.

A series of tetradentate pyridyl-imine terminated Schiff-base ligands has been investigated for their ability in the catalytic oxidation of alcohols when combined with copper bromide (CuBr2) and 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidyl-1-oxy (TEMPO). Analogous bidentate ligands showed poorer catalytic activity and the ratio of … Continue reading →

The utilization of carbon dioxide under supercritical conditions in the delignification of wood has already been reported in the literature for several species of tree. In these studies organic solvents (acetic acid, ethanol, methanol, dioxane, etc.) were used as co-solvent … Continue reading →

Coprecipitation of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) with additives can provide the ability to add functionality to API’s at early stages of drug discovery and synthesis. It is with this objective that a number of drugs were recrystallized in the presence … Continue reading →

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) was used to extract components of interest from Scenedesmus dimorphus, a microalgae species, under varied algal harvesting and extraction conditions. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to quantify the concentration of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) … Continue reading →

The purpose of this work was to develop an extraction technique to yield a betulinic acid-(BA) enriched extract of the traditional anti-anxiety plant Souroubea sympetala Gilg (Marcgraviaceae). Five extraction techniques were compared: supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SCE), conventional solvent extraction … Continue reading →

The phase behavior of solutes in SCF is an important aspect, which is often overlooked in the solubility determinations. Solid solutes when in contact with supercritical CO2 can exhibit complex phase behavior such as depression in melting point resulting in … Continue reading →

Supercritical fluids and in particular supercritical carbon dioxide have shown to be a viable technology for a variety of extractions. While process conditions require high pressures, technological advances have now made it feasible to acquire such equipment for the undergraduate … Continue reading →

Supercritical fluid extraction was successfully used to extract peanut oil from peanuts at temperatures between 40 and 80 °C and pressures of 5000-7000 psi. Static/dynamic cycling was used with a 10 minute static soak time, followed by a 10 minute … Continue reading →

Substituted phenols are an important class of compounds having widespread use (germicides, disinfectants, ingredients in fuel, etc.).  In this work, the solubilities of selected substituted phenols (2,5-dimethylphenol, 2,4,6-trimethylphenol,2,3,5-trimethylphenol, 4-phenylphenol, 4-tertbutylphenol) in binary (single solute + SCF CO2) and ternary (two … Continue reading →

Carbon dioxide is widely recognized today as a “Green Chemistry” solvent. The unique physical and chemical properties of carbon dioxide in its supercritical state, namely the absence of surface tension, low viscosity, high diffusivity, and easily tunable solvent strength provide … Continue reading →

Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction is currently used in several food and pharmaceutical manufacturing applications. Its “greener” nature makes it a desirable option when compared with traditional organic solvent extractions. The purpose of this work is to compare the cost of … Continue reading →