Supercritical fluid extraction of oil from potato chips: Two scale comparison and mathematical modeling

Oil was extracted from fried chipped potatoes using supercritical carbon dioxide. The goals of the study were to determine the effect of process parameters on the extraction, explore the scalability of the process, and determine useful kinetic parameters. Extraction conditions range 27.6-41.4 MPa (4000-6000 PSI), 35-80 °C and solvent flow rate of 0.5-5.0 g CO2/min. Up to 100% of the oil was recovered from the potato chips at the highest pressure and temperature conditions. Two process conditions were chosen for comparison of performance with a larger scale (1:5) system, maintaining the same CO2 flow rate to feed mass ratio. Good agreement between scales was seen at the higher pressure and temperature settings. Kinetic parameters, calculated using a literature model, indicated that, as expected, the extraction is limited by internal diffusion.