DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE OF A SUPERCRITICAL CO₂ LIQUID EXTRACTION MACHINE FOR EXTRACTING BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS

Bioactive compounds in animal and plant cells have many benefits for human health, such as antioxidants, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer. Extraction and separation of bioactive compounds from other compounds is an important step, and commonly, conventional methods are used, but these methods have disadvantages, like producing unwanted compounds. Alternative methods can be conducted using supercritical fluid extraction, but this equipment is expensive and has a small capacity. So, this study aims to produce functional and structural designs and manufacture supercritical fluid extraction machines using carbon dioxide solvents (CO₂) operating with a semi-continuous system. This research succeeded in designing and manufacturing a supercritical fluid extraction machine using carbon dioxide (CO₂) solvent that operates in a semi-continuous system for the extraction of bioactive compounds, with main components including cover frames, supercritical extractor chamber, low and high-pressure CO₂ tubes, compressors and boosters, pipelines, direct valves, manometers, heating, cooler, expanders, reservoirs and automatic control. Moreover, the preliminary simulation test studies revealed that the supercritical extractor chamber could withstand an absolute pressure of 1000 bar, a temperature of 300°C, and a work capacity of 1 L. It indicated that the supercritical CO₂ fluid extractor system was performing well for the conditioning of the extractor chamber, which is generated using a booster and controlled by a one-way valve. Then, the extract is transferred to the separation chamber to separate the CO₂ gas. Then, CO₂ gas is returned to the low-pressure CO₂ tubes for recycling and reuse for the following process.