SIMULATION ON THE EXTRACTION OF SUNFLOWER OIL (heliantus annuus L.) USING SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE

Current technology in separation of Sunflower oil requires relatively large facilities, a large
investment, complex mechanical work and the possibility of having a negative impact on the
environment. Separation using Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SCFE) especially Carbon Dioxide
is proposed as a solution to some of the advantages of conventional extraction methods. The
project aims to simulate the extraction of sunflower oil by using supercritical carbon dioxide
(SC-CO2) in a commercial scale. There are many research papers are published to study the
pattern of the sunflower oil extraction using SC-CO2. Hence, this project involves incorporation
of the novel findings to configure feasible design route for extraction and separation of sunflower
oil by using SC-CO2. The simulation will be carried out using Aspentech HYSYS simulation
software. This comprehensive study can provide the knowledge on the rising SFE separation
technology. This project will elaborate and differentiate the conventional vacuum distillation and
solvent extraction methods against SC-CO2 on extracting thermo labile molecule from oil
bearing seeds. The process was scaled-up with the aid of the experimental data from Nimet, et
al,. (2011) & Kiriamiti, et al., (2001) and optimized to 250 Bar and 400C of process operating
parameters. Through this scale-up simulation it is identified the yield of sunflower oil is 38-42%
w/w, similar to the experimental results. The project was further justified by cash flow of the
project with rate of return (ROR) more than 15 % which is 17.9 %.