Extraction of tocopherol-enriched oils from Quinoa seeds by supercritical fluid extraction

• SFE allows to obtain oil with high concentration of tocopherols.
• Good correlation between actual and predicted content of E vitamin was achieved.
• High temperature extraction allows to obtain high content of tocopherols in oil.
• Long time of extraction results in obtaining high tocopherol content in the extract.
• SFE gave four times higher tocopherol concentration comparing with Soxhlet.

The efficiency of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) in the production of oil with a high concentration of tocopherols (vitamin E), from seeds of Quinoa (Chenopodium Quinoa Willd.), was investigated. The effect of the process parameters such as pressure, temperature and time of extraction on the total tocopherol yield was studied. For this purpose, the response surface methodology (RSM) was applied. The optimal SFE conditions for the tocopherol-enriched oil extraction from Quinoa seeds were: extracting pressure 18.5 MPa, extracting temperature 130 °C and extracting time 180 min. These optimum conditions yielded in tocopherol concentration of 336.0 mg/100 g of oil and tocopherols were more than four times concentrated than in classical hexane extraction.

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