Lab Scale Plant

In our research plants the extractor gross volume is about 1500 ml, whereas the basket containing the matrix t treat has total useful volume of 800 ml. The closings are “Rapid”, with no locknut nor bolts. The Separeco research plant, model SCF100, has very restrained size, 120 cm x 140 cm. It has a low energy consumption and low amperage, thanks to the utilization of threephase electric equipment. We can provide it in several versions, manual ones and PLC assisted ones, supervised by a PC with total control on the process and video graphs generation. 

Multipurpose Plant

In 2007 the first multipurpose plant was born, and it was made of 3 basic cycles: extraction, fractionation and pasteurization. It is produced in two sizes: 1 liter and 5 liters. This kind of plant is the first ever made in Europe, and its version 500 is equipped with a 5 liters extractor, a 4,5 meters high fractionation column and a 1.2 liters continuous pasteurizer. This plant is manufactured exclusively in our laboratories, and it is usually provided with a PLC and the Gerico control software. The closures are “Rapid” type, with no locknut or bolts, and they are certified up to 600 bar performances. The heat exchangers are pipe-in-pipe type, s well as the condensator and the evaporator. DescriptionThe blocks diagram of the multipurpose Separeco SFE/SFF/SFP plant is shown in the figure. The SFE cycle is composed by the extractor E1 for solid matrices and two separators S1and S2, In this cycle the volumetric pump PCO2 for the liquid CO2 and the pump Pco-solvent for the co-solvent are active. The mixing happens before the extractor. The process pressure is controlled by the membrane valve MV1, piloted by the PLC. The separation occurs in the two consecutive separators. The SFF cycle is composed by a fractionation tower T1 connected to the pump Pliquid. This pump sends the liquid to fractionate into the tower. The process pressure is controlled by the membrane valve MV1, piloted by the PLC. The SFP cycle is composed by a pasteurization reactor connected to the pump PCO2 and to the pump Pliquid through the static mixer M. The thermostatic coat keeps the process temperature between 35 and 45°C.

Supercritical Water/Etahnol Extraction

Supercritical Carbon dioxide is a great solvent for apolar substances. Our compressed water and carbon dioxide extraction system allows the extraction of polar substances. The action of carbon dioxide is to permeate matrices, coadiuvating water's solvent action. This system, experimented on green coffee, allowed its decaffeinization and the total recovery of caffeine from the separators.

These new geantion plants are different from tartidional one. They need two high pressure pumps working at the same pressure, one for CO2 the oter for H2O

Pilot Plant

Separeco produces 2 to 200 liters pilot plants. The utilization of a pilot plant allows to obtain good quality extracts and/or refined products on which it is possible to perform a wide range of tests, including evaluation panels. With plants having at least 5 liters volume it is possible to produce small series of samples for commercial feasibility evaluation.The configuration as flexible as possible. It starts with the smallest 2 liters model SCF200 up to the 10 liters model SCF1000.