THE PREPARATION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS BY SUPERCRITICAL FLUID EXTRACTION

THE ROLE OF MODIFIERS IN SUPERCRITICAL FLUID EXTRACTION (SFE) TECHNOLOGY IS TO AUGUMENT THE SOLUBILIZING CHARACTERISTICS OF SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE FOR ACHIEVING EFFICIENT EXTRACTIONS OF TARGET ANALYTES. THIS WORK WILL SERVE TO INVESTIGATE THE EFFECTS OF VARIOUS MODIFIERS FROM A MECHANISTIC POINT OF VIEW TO DETERMINE EXTRACTION KINETICS AND MODIFIER EFFICIENCIES. THIS WILL BE DONE WHILE INCORPORATING SAMPLE MATRIX EFFECTS AS WELL AS SECONDARY MODIFIERS. TARGET ANALYTE COLLECTIONS WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE TRAPPING OF THE EXTRACTION EFFLUENT IN A CRYOGENIX TRAP PACKED WITH AN ADSORBENT. MOREOVER, THE EFFECT OF MODIFIERS ON DIFFERENT ADSORBENTS WILL ALSO BE EXPLORED. STATISTICAL DATA OBTAINED FROM THESE VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS WILL BE USED TO OBTAIN PROTOCOLS FOR OFF-LINE SFE WHEN USING MODIFIERS AND CRYOGENIC ABSORBENT TRAPPING FOR USE IN VARIOUS APPLICATIONS. THIS BASE OF KNOWLEDGE WILL THEN BE APPLIED IN PHASE II TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANALYTICAL METHODOLOGIES EFFECTING AGRICULTURAL/AGRICHEMICAL RESEARCH SUCH AS THE DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS TO EXTRACT PESTICIDES AND HERBICIDES FROM SOILS, FEEDS, FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.