Experimental Study and Modeling of Supercritical Extraction of Nicotine from Tabacco Leaves

In this work, the solubility of nicotine extracted from tobacco leaves, found in the north of Iran, in supercritical carbon dioxide has been measured. Also the effects of pressure, temperature, extraction dynamic time, and the organic co-Solvent on the amount of nicotine extracted from tobacco leaves have been investigated. It should be stressed that in order to reduce significantly the number of experiments, the experiments have been specified based on the Taguchi experimental design. The results obtained from the experiments showed that at the specified pressure, temperature, volume of modifier and dynamic time, the maximum amount of nicotine can be extracted. The experimental data collected in this research has been correlated using the Redlich-Kwong (R.K) equation of state. The results showed that the conventional cubic R.K equation of state can accurately correlate the experimental solubility data with good accuracy.