Supercritical extraction of coffe green beans oil from State of São Paulo

Abstract

In 2008, Brazil produced 2.8 million tons of coffee, accounting for 34.3% of world production (ABIC, 2010). In the ranking of world trade in dollars, the coffee industry is the second largest behind only petrol. These data are indicative that the coffee is still a significant agricultural product of commercial importance to Brazil. However, excess world supply beyond demand has reduced its value in the last three decades that encourages the development of coffee products with higher added value in order to reduce this trend. This research project, with the support of the small green coffee oil producers from Brazil, aims to study and characterize the green coffee oil obtained by pressing for these small producers. Thus, the characterization will be made for the genuine product processed and exported for them. From this characterization, considering the minor components that have biological activities such as phenolic compounds and diterpenes, cafestol and kahweol, intends to apply a technological innovation through the use of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) in order to obtain the green coffee oil enriched, especially in these two major diterpenes relevant to cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Although knowing the composition of green coffee beans and the possible applicability of this coffee oil derived products for health, there is no technical/scientific literature on a standardized description of the composition of Brazilian green coffee oil obtained in the pressing processing. There are many works that present the characterization of minor components present in coffee beans, but this composition may not be consistent with the oil obtained by pressing, since the extractions in the laboratory scale have characteristics very different from those applied in processing. Thus, this research aims to demonstrate possible changes in the conventional extraction process and to complement this study with the use of new methods that can serve as subsidies to encourage innovation of rudimentary processes with a view to obtaining green coffee oil enriched in cafestol and kahweol. Over time, we want to encourage technological development by studying the possibility of using these large-scale processes. (AU)