A new industrial process for extracting cocoa butter and xanthines with supercritical carbon dioxide

This research explores the feasibility of extracting cocoa butter and xanthines (theobromine and caffeine) from cocoa beans with supercritical CO2. It is difficult to carry out the extraction with CO2 alone in the temperature range 40-90 degrees C at pressures between 80 to 300 bar. However, the addition of a polar cosolvent, such as ethanol, greatly enhances solubilities, especially that of cocoa butter. Based on experimental investigations and theoretical inference, the design of a potential industrial process for extracting cocoa butter and xanthines is proposed, in which ethanol is used as cosolvent, and distillation is used to separate and regenerate ethanol. The pressure required is much less than that for CO2 alone as specified in the patent literature.