Technology

MOR’s SFE Technology

MOR’s technology is based on the know-how, discoveries and engineering of MOR’s President, Rodger Marentis. Over his career, Mr. Marentis has developed a host practical supercritical fluid (SF) applications, including many extraction processes. Armed with a thorough understanding of SF fundamentals, and years of real-world experience, Mr. Marentis and MOR have developed state-of-the-art, efficient, low-cost, equipment and systems for commodity oil extraction. (Read more here about the history of our company and technology.)

Below are some of the key attributes of our systems:

MOR’s plants are energy-efficient. They employ novel process designs that allow for extraordinarily low energy use, operating with fast extraction rates and low solvent-to-feed ratios. MOR has also developed trade-secret designs that conserve significant amounts of energy in the process, reducing energy use even further - beyond that of any other supercritical system today.

MOR’s plants are automated, modular, and scalable. By designing component-based plants that are easily assembled fabrication shops, we can eliminate much of the risks and cost overruns and overheads often associated with field-built plants. MOR’s modular plants also allow customers to reduce technology risk by first installing smaller modules, and scaling-up in size as demand grows. MOR’s highly automated plants are designed to operate with low labor costs and minimal down-time.

MOR’s plants are clean, safe, and have a small environmental footprint. MOR’s plants have a footprint that is at least one-sixth that of a typical solvent extraction plant. Because our plants are highly automated, and do not use solvents or even flammable co-solvents, they provide a very safe working environment. MOR’s plants use little to no water in the process, and have virtually zero emissions beyond particulate matter.

MOR’s plants produce safe, solvent-free, non-degraded, high-quality products. MOR’s plants add more value to products by producing both meal and oil products that are free of hexane, and unlike solvent-extracted meal, is a valuable product for the food-grade market. Because of the very fast extraction times, MOR’s products are exposed to a relatively low level of heat and moisture for a very short period of time, resulting in un-degraded meal products (i.e., high protein digestibility).

MOR’s plants use safe, pure CO₂ as their only solvent. A key to MOR’s design is the ability to achieve fast extraction rates without the use of co-solvents, resulting in plants without the additional cost, risk, and product degradation associated with co-solvents. While MOR does have the ability and experience to use co-solvents in unique applications, our primary design for commodity products is based on CO₂ only.

MOR’s plants integrated oil refining as part of the extraction process. MOR’s systems make use of novel fractionation technology that extracts undesired compounds to produce pure food-grade oils. By integrating refining with the extraction process, we can produce refined oils from one system, eliminating the need for multiple, costly refining steps. The systems can also produce oils with superior flavor profiles compared to solvent-extracted oils.