Modelling of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction of Oil from Oilseeds

This study is aimed to learn the underlying behaviour of the Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (C02) Extraction on the oilseeds or any solid without chemical reaction. CFD model will be developed to better understand the mass transfer phenomenon and complex flow field around a single particle in porous medium. Wide range of species has been explored such as wheat germ, oats, tomato, grape seed and soybean. Despite the relatively large number of species processed, only some models of the SFE of oil seed have been published. CFD numerically solves the Navier-Stokes equations and the energy and species balances. Some important variables in extraction process such as solvents flow rate and solid particle length will be modeled. Volume of Fluid (VOF) method will be used to predict the mentioned fields in a 2D geometry. This project focus is to model the the concentration profile of oil under Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction condition via CFD. In the end, it will predict extract yields as a function of flow rate and particle diameter. Thus, determine the most optimum operating conditions and improve the efficiency of the extraction process. Experimental result referred is to validate the proposed model