Extraction of essential oils from Mentha spicata L. (Labiatae) via optimized supercritical carbon dioxide process

•SC-CO2 extraction process is used to extract the essential oil from spearmint leave.•The effects of different operating conditions are investigated.•Optimal extraction parameters are obtained based on 2nd order polynomial equation.•Optimum operating condition is analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.•The yield of optimum condition is obtained 0.4894%.

Spearmint oil known as aromatic volatile compound of plants are widely used in food industries. In the present study, supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) extraction is used to extract the essential oil from spearmint leaves. In this way, a series of extraction experiments are designed to investigate the effect of different operating conditions such as extraction pressure (85-120 bar), extraction temperature (38-50 °C), CO2 flow rate (0.059-0.354 g/min), mean particle size (0.177-2 mm) and dynamic extraction time (20-120 min) on efficiency of the extracted essential oils. In the last step, not only a second order polynomial equation is developed to obtain the optimal SC-CO2 extraction parameters, but also the composition of extracted essential oil at optimum operating condition is analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

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