SUPERCRITICAL-FLUID EXTRACTION OF OIL-PALM COMPONENTS

Residue from the mechanical processing of palm oil was treated with su percritical-fluid extraction (SFE) to extract carotenes. This was done at different extraction conditions. Also, leaves of palm oil trees we re extracted using supercritical fluid to gain high concentrations of tocopherols in the extract. The aim of these SFE experiments was to ev aluate whether either the carotene or tocopherol contents of the extra cts were sufficiently high enough to allow downstream processing of th ese waste products. Tn addition, solubility data for alpha-tocopherol in supercritical carbon dioxide in a density range of 220-930 kg m(-3) were measured.