Waters Doubles Capacity of SFE Bio-Botanical Extraction System
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Waters Corporation has announced immediate availability of a new ten-liter (10L) extraction vessel for its SFE Bio-Botanical Extraction System, a multi-vessel supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) system that rapidly fractionates and extracts large quantities of desired components from a multitude of botanical matrices.
The Waters® SFE Bio-Botanical Extraction System (BBES) functions as a bulk-scale, high-pressure separator for collecting extracted compounds. The 10L vessel doubles current capacity and can be acquired as an add-on to installed systems. It will be available on new systems in March 2015.
"As the extraction system of choice, the SFE Bio-Botanical Extraction System provides high extraction efficiency and selective fractionation of an extract in a single run," said Mark Groudas, Vice President, Americas Field Operations,Waters Division. "The drive to increase system capacity comes directly from our customers who seek longer unattended operation of their extraction processes. As important as run time, users are seeing increased consistency of final extracted products from run-to-run."
Furthermore, a new computer-controlled Automation Module that allows the SFE BBES to extract the high-quality product in less time with even less manual intervention is expected to be available in the second quarter. The new automation module will provide greater flexibility for unattended operation through seamless transition between the first and second extractions without user intervention, thereby extending uninterrupted operation even further.
One of the more compelling features of the SFE BBES is the use of supercritical CO2 as its mobile phase, which has been shown to be a safer alternative to organic solvents or hydrocarbons (butane). The SFE BBES achieves the highest product quality in less time through a computer-controlled system allowing for precise control of pressure, temperature and time.
The SFE BBES consists primarily of a liquid CO2 pump, a mass flow meter, extraction vessels, an automated back pressure regulator, two heat exchangers and three cyclone fraction collection vessels. Options include a co-solvent pump and mixer and a CO2 recycler. Using the current Process Suites software, the system can be automated for pressure, temperature, flow rate and extraction time. Existing methods can be saved to be run again and again or the software can be run in “manual” mode.
