Economical Effects of Supercritical Antisolvent Precipitation Process Conditions

The effects of several operational parameters (pressure, temperature, CO2 flow rate, solution flow rate, injector type, and concentration of solute in the ethanol solution) during Supercritical AntiSolvent (SAS) precipitation process on the energy consumption cost per unit of manufactured product were investigated using experimental design technique. In this work, two different injectors were used. A completely randomized experiment would eventually require a modification of the apparatus after each experimental run. To avoid this, the experimental runs were done accordingly with a split-plot experimental design. For this study, Ibuprofen sodium salt was used as a model solute, ethanol was used as solvent, and CO2 was used as antisolvent. This supercritical fluid-based has been used successfully for several food and pharmaceutical applications since the production of small micro- and nanometer-sized particles have attracted growing interest in these industries. Focusing on energy saving, an SAS precipitation process was simulated using the SuperPro Designer simulation platform. The effect of temperature versus concentration of ethanolic solution and pressure versus solution flow rate interactions on the energy consumption cost per unit of manufactured product was demonstrated. The lowest estimated energy cost per unit of manufactured product was obtained using an ethanolic solution of 0.04 g mL−1 at 12 MPa of pressure and a solution flow rate of 1 mL min−1. This result was independent of the temperature. Thus, the present work reports a systematic energetic-economic study of the supercritical antisolvent micronization process, aiming increase knowledge about this process and its further incorporation by the food and pharmaceutical industries.