Obtention of a brewed coffee aroma extract by an optimized supercritical CO2-based process

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) was used to obtain brewed coffee extracts with an aroma as similar as possible to the original brewed coffee. The optimization of the process operating variables was performed by means of a sequential simplex method whose response was based on the sensorial evaluation of the aroma extracts. Subsequently, the composition of the extracts obtained at the optimal SFE conditions was determined by using a purge-and-trap device coupled to a GC-MS. For comparison, extracts obtained by using liquid - liquid extraction and headspace-solid-phase microextraction were also obtained and analyzed by GC-MS.