For supercritical processing, the following items are required at a minimum: a pressure vessel for the material to be processed (“extractor” shown on the right in Q.12), a pump that pressurizes to about 5 to 45 MPa, a heater that keeps the temperature at 20 to 150°C, a separator to separate the extracted material from the CO₂, and a CO₂ cylinder.
To manufacture the equipment, specifications such as the capacity of the pressure vessel, design temperature, design pressure, and flow rate are first determined according to the treatment purpose and treatment volume. For example, if you want to observe the supercritical condition (~ 27MPa), use the view cell with a glass window shown in the Q.2. The system can be fabricated from 5 ml or more. In the case of a test system, cooling and recovery of carbon dioxide as shown in Q.12 is not generally done for economic reasons.
Please refer to Q.2 for the apparatus used in our trial test. The following are examples of typical equipment manufactured by our company.