Technology

Conventional SFE

Despite the enormous demand today for cleaner and safer processes, and its many advantages, SFE has not managed to date to replace solvent extraction for any large-scale commodity products; primarily due to SFE’s high capital and operating costs. The majority of SFE systems today are batch vessel systems which operate at lower extraction rates and with little concern for energy conservation. These systems, while they serve a great purpose in applications where product quality, product purity, and environmental footprint are key considerations, are simply not cost competitive with larger scale commercial methods.

Some progress has been made in recent years, but current designs still lack the combination of improvements necessary to bring the cost of SFE to a level where it can compete with solvent extraction.