International Journal of Pharma Research & Review, July 2015; 4(7):1-9 ISSN: 2278-6074 Achyut K Panda et.al, IJPRR 2015; 4(7) 1 Research Article Supercritical CO2 Extraction of Active Components of Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) Seed Debashis Das, *Achyut K. Panda Department of Chemistry, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology Burla, Odisha, India-768018. ABSTRACT Use of supercritical fluids for the separation of analytes from the matrix of many samples has been of interest to researchers and industries now a day. This is because of the fact that, use of reagents of this type avoids many of the problems such as high solvent cost, environmental pollution, spent solvent impurity in the extract, longer duration of extraction etc. lying with conventional methods of extraction for organic liquid extractants. In this context, supercritical CO2 extraction (SC-CO2) of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) seed was carried out in a bench scale plant. To investigate the effects of pressure and temperature on the solubility of oil and oil yield, and to optimize the operating conditions, three isobaric (100, 200, and 300 bar) and three isothermal (40, 50 and 60°C) extraction conditions were selected. The optimum extraction condition was 40°C /300 bar, and 85 min extraction time, where 3.65% oil yield was achieved. Chemical composition of the oil was investigated using gas chromatography –mass spectrometry in electron impact mode. Thirty numbers of different compounds are detected out of which 15 were fatty acids (58.44%). The major compounds are oleic acid (32.74%), heneicosane (9.50%) and sotolon (8.52%) and also contain some amount of Eucalyptol (0.85%). Keywords: Fenugreek seed, fatty acids, GC-MS, operating conditions, supercritical CO2 extraction Received 3 June 2015 Received in revised form 20 June 2015 Accepted 27 June 2015 *Address for correspondence: Achyut K. Panda, Department of Chemistry, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology Burla, Odisha, India-768018. E-mail: achyut.panda@gmail.com _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is a rapid, simple and inexpensive analytical separation technique for separation of the analyte or analytes from a sample matrix without loss or degradation, impurity and wastes that have to be disposed off. This method may be used for performing analytical separations on complex environmental, pharmaceutical, food and petroleum samples, thus attract many researchers and industries to work on it. It is a process separating one component (the extractant) from another (the matrix) using supercritical fluids as the extracting solvent. Extraction is usually from a solid matrix, but it can also be from liquids. SFE can be used as a sample preparation step for analytical purposes, or on a larger scale to either strip unwanted material from a product (e.g. decaffeination) or collect a desired product (e.g. essential oils). Different supercritical fluids used as solvents are Carbon dioxide, Water, Methane, Ethane and Methanol. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most used supercritical fluid, sometimes modified by co-solvents such as ethanol or methanol. Extraction conditions for supercritical CO2 are above the critical temperature of 31°C and critical pressure of 74 bar. Due to its low critical temperature 31°C, carbon dioxide is known to be perfectly adapted in food, aromas, essential oils and nutraceutical industries. Unlike other processes, the extraction process leaves no solvent residue behind. Moreover the CO2 is non-toxic, nonflammable, odorless, tasteless, inert, and inexpensive. The density of the supercritical CO2 at around 200 bar pressure is close to that of hexane, and the solvation characteristics are also similar to hexane; thus, it acts as a non-polar solvent. The solvation characteristics of supercritical CO2 can be modified by the addition of an entrainer, such as ethanol, however some entrainer remains as a solvent residue in the product, negating some of the advantages of the “residue-free” extraction [1].