You were in the grocery store shopping for holiday candy. You spotted your favorite and grabbed a bag. (Maybe two if it was on sale!) You tossed your holiday treats into your cart. As they landed face-down among your other chosen items, you noticed the nutritional information printed on the back of the bag.
Among the statistics printed on the back was the amount of fat in a serving of your beloved chocolate. Important information even if you don’t really want to know. But how did the manufacturer get that information?
There are several ways to determine the amount of fat in chocolate. Some include hazardous solvents. Supercritical carbon dioxide is another method, which eliminates solvent cost, exposure to hazardous solvents, and additional solvent disposal costs. Sample preparation and processing time is also reduced significantly using SC-CO2 as a replacement for standard Soxhlet technique. These techniques have since been updated to faster, more efficient methods.
Supercritical fluids, however, are perfect for other extractions. More applications will be showcased here.
For more information on doing extractions with our supercritical fluid systems:
https://supercritical.appliedseparations.com/spe-ed-sfe-2-supercritical-system/
There’s HOW MUCH fat in my chocolate? A History of Supercritical Fluid Extraction
