Pressurized Fluid Extraction of Pistachio Oil Using a Modified Supercritical Fluid Extractor and Factorial Design for Optimization

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Seyed Hassan Ghaziaskar ¹

Ali Sheibani ²

¹ Department of Chemistry, Isfahan University of Technology Isfahan

² Yazd University

https://doi.org/10.22067/ifstrj.v3i2.1779

Abstract

A pressurized fluid extraction (PFE) method for the extraction of pistachio oil was developed using a
modified supercritical fluid extractor. The supercritical fluid extraction apparatus was modified to be
able to pump liquid solvent and CO2 into the extraction vessel alternatively. The experimental results
showed that the extraction yield was independent of the extraction pressure. It was also noticed that
addition of glass beads increased the extraction yield by more than 15%, while the extraction
reproducibility expressed by RSD was improved from 4% to 1%. Furthermore, the use of glass beads
reduced the solvent consumption from 35 to 20 mL. The influence of the effective variables (i.e.
temperature, time, and glass beads percentage) was optimized by a factorial design method. The model
allows the prediction of the extraction yield at different conditions. The PFE of pistachio oil was found
comparable in terms of the extraction yield (52.6%) and fatty acid composition with the Soxhlet
method. Two different solvents of n-hexane and ethanol were used for PFE of pistachio oil. The
extraction yield was about one third (i.e. 18%) when ethanol was used as solvent.
Keywords: Pressurized Fluid Extraction; Accelerated Solvent Extraction; Pistachio Oil; Supercritical
Fluid Extractor; Factorial Design Optimization; Soxhlet Extraction.

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