Plant-material extraction in a standardised laboratory apparatus using optimal experimental design

Abstract:
In order to design an apparatus for the extraction of natural raw material it is crucial to determine the extraction behaviour for optimal operating conditions. In this paper the extraction behaviour of black pepper with an ethanol-water mixture is determined under different pre-treatment and digestion methods for the plant material. The mass transfer inside the particles is described by diffusion models. It can be shown that e.g. not only the particle size but also the milling method is significant. The use of ultrasonication leads to a significant improvement in the extraction yield. The experiments are performed in a standardized laboratory apparatus for the extraction of natural raw material which leads to good reproducible experimental results. The experimental conditions are optimized with the model-based experimental design (MEXA). It is shown that MEXA is a suitable method for model discrimination and parameter estimation with a minimum of measuring effort. This systematically methodology can be used to optimize and design plant-material extraction processes.

Keywords:
Phytoextraktion, MEXA