Mean Aspects Controlling Supercritical CO2 Precipitation Processes

Abstract

The use of supercritical CO2 is an excellent alternative in extraction, particle precipitation, impregnation and reaction processes due to its special properties. Solubility of the compound in supercritical CO2 drives the precipitation process in different ways. In supercritical antisolvent process, mass and heat transfers, phase equilibria, nucleation, and growth of the compound to be precipitated are the main phenomena that should be taken into account. Mass transfer conditions the morphology and particle size of the final product. This transfer could be tuned altering operating conditions. Heat transfer in non-isothermal process influences on mixing step the size of generated microparticles. In rapid expansion of supercritical solution, phenomena as the phase change from supercritical to a CO2 gas flow, rapid mass transfer and crystallization of the compound, and expansion jet define the morphology and size of the final product. These phenomena a priori could be modulated tuning a large number of operating parameters through the experiments, but the correlations and modeling of these processes are necessary to clarify the relative importance of each one. Moreover, particle agglomeration in the expansion jet and CO2 condensation are determinant phenomena which should be avoided in order to conserve fine particles in the final product.