Food & Health
CO2 extraction permits to obtain oily extracts from natural products at low temperatures and without using organic solvents.
CO2 extraction permits to obtain oily extracts from natural products at low temperatures and without using organic solvents.
Compared to cold press extraction, CO2 is specially good when high yields are required or when starting amount of oily material is not high. In these cases, cold pressing is not able to extract the oil and CO2 is the alternative.
So, CO2 extraction is widely used to obtain high value oils to be used as Food suplements, flavours, antioxidants, from vegetal materials like:
SAW PALMETTO OIL (SERENOA REPENS)
CHAMOMILE EXTRACT
SEA BUCKTHORN EXTRACT
ROSEMARY
GINGER OIL
MICROALGAE OILS
POMEGRANATE SEED OIL
HOP EXTRACT
CUMIN OIL
PEPPER OIL
CO2 is able to extract lipid compounds from natural matrixes without affecting their structure and obtaining in a single process two valuable products (a natural oil and a low fat food material).
Depending on the case, we can reduce the fat content in the natural products to values around 2% (in case of cereals) or lower than 1%, for example when defatting cocoa.
Different healthy products and ingredients can be obtained using this process.
HIGH PROTEIN INGREDIENTS STARTING FROM PRESS CAKES
Oily seeds are normally pressed to obtain their oils used in Food. After extraction of the oil by pressing, a press cake containing still around 10% off at is used as Food flour for Food and feed. The removal of this remaning fat with CO2, can mean a very low fat ingredient with increased protein content (due to the fat reduction). These flours can be used as protein ingredient or even for vegan products as an alternative to animal meat.
Some examples of protein flours that can be improved with this process are sunflower seed protein ingredient, pumpkin seed, almond and other nuts…
REDUCED FAT CONTENT INGREDIENTS
CO2 can reduce the fat content in the materials. Depending on the case, this process can be developed to reduce fat content without affecting the starting structure. This means that the technology can be used to obtain defatted ingredients in different formats (powder, flakes, slices, pieces) to be used in healthier products for snacks, bakery ingredients, sports Food or suplements. As an examle cocoa with fat content lower than 1% used as a flavour in these products. Almond protein powder can also be used in health and wellness products such as protein bars.