TECHNOLOGY
Supercritical CO2 Extraction
Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction is performed at or above critical temperature (304 K) and critical pressure (73 atm) of carbon dioxide. This process has the advantages of low operating temperature and easiness to remove CO2 solvent from the mixture at room temperature and pressure.
The essential oils processed by this method usually has better quality and higher purity compared to other solvent extraction method. In addition, carbon dioxide is an environmentally safe solvent and has low toxicity.
Fractional Distillation
Fractional distillation is a separation technique of a mixture into its components parts by heating them to a temperature at which one or more fractions of the compound will vaporize. The vapor rises up the column packed with inerts material with high surface area. When the vapor rises along the column, some will condense back down and some will continue all the way up the column and condense in the condenser. This process allows for separation or purification of components with close boiling points.
Molecular Distillation
Molecular distillation can be used for deodorization of oils, removal of colors or contaminants and many other applications.
Liquid mixture is fed into a very thin film, where heated walls drive the more volatile components closer to condenser as the less volatile components continue down the cylinder. The resulting fractions, thus separated, exit through individual discharge outlets.
Because of short time contact with hot temperature wall, the aroma of essential oil does not change but the unwanted contaminant for example heavy metal is removed and the color of essential oil also becomes softer.
Steam Distillation
Steam distillation is using steam to extract essential oils from plant material. The steam forces open the pockets where the oils are kept in the plant material, hence releasing the aromatic molecules. The molecules of these volatile oils evaporate into the steam and then passed through a condenser. The condensed liquid will separate into layers of essential oil and water.
The temperature of the steam is carefully controlled to ensure enough energy to force the plant material to release the essential oil, but not too hot as to burn the plant material or the essential oil. The steam is produced at a higher pressure to facilitate faster removal of the essential oil from the plant material and in doing so prevents damage to the oil from high temperature exposure.
High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
and Gas Chromatography (GC)
With advanced laboratory equipments, we ensure that our raws materials and our products meet the specification. HPLC and GC are separation techniques used to analyze essential oils, flavor and fragrance ingredients.
In HPLC, the mixture is diluted in liquid sovent and send through column. As the material leaves the column, its refractive index or UV adsorption level is detected and recorded.
In GC, carrier gas such as nitrogen or argon is used. The mixture enters a very long heated columns where the temperature is controlled. The component with different boiling points are separated inside the column and are identified with flame ionization detector. The signal is then recorded in a graph known as chromatogram.