Objectives:

Development of a two-step process, which consists of an initial hydro-alcoholic solvent extraction followed by supercritical fluid extraction, which is able to extract and separate both polar and non-polar active constituents of the plant material.

Two plant materials will be investigated.

Tasks and methodology:

• Laboratory scale extractions with ethyl alcohol, water and carbon dioxide and optimisation of process parameters by experimental design.
• Scale up of optimized process to pilot scale.
• Development and / or implementation of comprehensive analytical methods for characterization of the different fractions.
• Description of extraction process by simple mathematical models.

Results: plant 1 and plant 2 separately in each cases

• best available drug raw materials selected
• optimal conditions of laboratory scale solvent extractions (plant 1 and plant 2) determined
• scale up of process to pilot scale
• mathematical description of the processes and critical evaluation of results

Planned secondment: Ruhr University of Bochum: 5 months, encapsulation of active compounds