I am Alexander Novitskiy, co-founder and the CEO of UK-based engineering company Nova Extraction. Nova Extraction is partner of Tournaire for the design and manufacturing of hardware for high pressure CO2 extraction.

CO2 extraction was discovered in 80s and first was used to decaffeinate coffee beans. Today, as technology evolves, CO2 extraction is used for flavour and fragrance, for bioactives like CBD, for natural colourant, antioxidant or natural pesticide extraction. 

CO2 usually is stored in its liquid form. It is then pumped to achieve high pressure and set temperature – It reaches the supercritical state.. Once conditions are met CO2 enters a vessel with raw material and dissolves target components. Then the cocktail of CO2 and a range of products gets into separation cascade where pressure and temperature are reduced in a controlled manner. By reducing pressure, we make solvent property worse and some of products precipitate. This way we can fractionate the mixture into several product groups, for example: aqueous, oils and volatiles. CO2 is then recycled for another run.

The advantages of performing a supercritical extraction test within WiNaLab are: 

• Complementarity with other processes represented in WiNatLab
• Ease of access for European players through a comprehensive and local platform

Any company is welcomed to perform tests. We already cater to such industries like Flavour and Fragrance, Food processing waste recycling and Hemp. New developments also occur in the processing of raw material in the form of puree and liquids.