Green Sustainable Process for Chemical and Environmental Engineering and Science

Reviews / Votes

"The extraction chapters focus primarily on applications of biological and bioactive compounds: extraction of catechins from green tea, lipids from algae, propolis, oleoresins and plant phenolics, essential oils, caffeine, and several chemicals from citrus, marigold, saffron, and other plants. The extended focus on extraction and purification of biological compounds is not surprising, since these materials tend to be very sensitive to temperature, making the comparative lower temperatures of SC-CO2 very attractive. The chapter on decaffeination is particularly well covered, probably given the fact that this extraction has been performed using SC-CO2 for quite a few years. The extraction chapters include an introduction of the relevance of the compounds extracted, short descriptions of the processes used, and advantages of using SC-CO2. These chapters also include several summary tables comparing different extraction methods, experimental conditions, alternative solvents, and types of extractions. The book chapters start from the premise that supercritical carbon dioxide is a "green? solvent. Although most chapters discuss disadvantages and limitations of using SC-CO2, they do not deeply cover sustainability metrics to evaluate the "greenness? of carbon dioxide as a solvent, including advantages and disadvantages. Chapter 11 on decaffeination is the only chapter to include a substantial discussion on environmental metrics such as life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental profile of the supercritical carbon dioxide process. If readers are interested in evaluating the environmental profile of using SC-CO2 compared to other solvents, they will need to look for a different publication. I believe this book is useful as a technical reference of some applications of supercritical carbon dioxide and is particularly useful in supplying extraction scenarios. The list price is comparable to other books that belong to this type of reference material. This work is not structured as a textbook but could be useful as supporting material for graduate or senior classes covering green chemistry or engineering to offer students practical examples of industrial or research uses of supercritical carbon dioxide. However, this would need to be supported by other references that critically evaluate the environmental profile of using carbon dioxide compared to other alternatives using appropriate metrics." --ASEE