Supercritical Membrane and Cold Distillation Technologies

Technology

Aqueous Gold's SCCO2 equipment continuously extract from fresh liquids or solids in a slurry, completely below body temperatures. Or it can continuously purify liquids, and fresh or dried solids in a slurry, to higher levels of purity. These new capabilities are redefining what is possible to extract and purify.

These new SCCO2 capabilities create better current products, and make new products possible, for example:

⇒ Biofuels, such as fuel ethanol from any feed material, are separated at higher purity and with far lower energy cost.

⇒ Fresh Juices retaining true fresh-squeezed flavor and nutrition are more pure, for longer refrigerated storage; or even sterilized for room-temperature shipping and storage.

⇒ Nutraceuticals such as antioxidants of unexcelled purity are extracted at lower cost.

⇒ Edible Oils ; soy, canola, corn, etc. have superior flavor, clarity, and virtually unlimited shelf life.

⇒ Botanical Flavors such as rosemary, have the full complexity of the fresh crushed leaves, and lower grade extractables, such as lycopene can be much more concentrated, for ultra-pure sale and reduce shipping costs.

⇒ Florals such as "non-extractable" Plumeria emerge, while common naturals have higher purity.

⇒ Waste Streams such as olive water, and capsaicin contaminated process water, can be rendered pure enough to go back into rivers and municipal treatment systems; and the extracted “contaminant” sold for high-purity use such as food additives and pharmaceutical applications.

⇒ Petroleum pre-refining is our latest development. We are testing our technology for non-thermally separating the oil in sour crude from the sulfur, water, and heavy metals, at a central location near the wellhead. This will greatly upgrade the value of fresh crude to the oil producers.

These new products demonstrate a wide-open field in many large and profitable markets for higher purity and lower cost separations, or longer shelf life of products with authentic fresh taste and full nutrition. In order for these new juices, botanicals, edible oils, biofuels, and many other products to exist, new technologies must be implemented first: the revolutionary processes delivered by Aqueous Gold.

Aqueous Gold (AG) equipment provides processors with three new transformational technologies that outperform conventional batch- and semi-batch-SCCO2 process for extraction; and outperform High Pressure Process (HPP) for flowable liquids. These three patented and proprietary, previously non-existent capabilities are:

[1]-Continuous SCCO2 Extraction. The efficiency of Aqueous Gold’s continuous operation reduces production costs, and along with AG’s lower equipment costs, combine to reduce the total cost of production for all SCCO2 extractables. Now, nearly anything extractable can afford the pristine quality of SCCO2. This cost reduction enables AG extracted products to out-compete existing batch extracted products in the market, and enables new SCCO2-extracted products to emerge in markets that simply did not have the margins to permit batch-SCCO2 extraction as an option.

[2]-Liquid SCCO2 Extraction. The old batch-SCCO2 can only process pre-dried solids. This limitation to pre-dry solids is not just a loss of time, but a cost burden incurred by the drying process. Pre-drying can result in serious degradation of both the quality and quantity of most extracted products, increases cost per pound of the reduced yield, and is a huge barrier to broader implementation of SCCO2 extraction. Aqueous Gold’s liquid processing capability enables extraction water slurries of every type of dried or fresh-harvested solids, and enables extraction from all-liquid feed materials as well. Extracting from fresh materials results in non-degraded quality, and often produces higher yields as well. The ability to extract from either solids or liquids means AG can extract from any material that contains the CO2 soluble product.

[3]-Continuous Liquid Purification by SCCO2. Since Aqueous Gold technology can process both solids and liquids, we can produce a version of our AG-Continuous SCCO2 for pasteurizing and sterilizing all types of slurries and flowable liquids. This includes fruit and vegetable juices, condiments like ketchup and mustard, salad dressings, and many other flowable products. Aqueous Gold continuous purification equipment will deliver the same or better quality as High Pressure Processing (HPP), since AG is completely non-thermal. Continuous SCCO2 purification is unprecedented, but the best part is that AG-Continuous Purification will routinely process between 6-log to 7-log microorganism reduction… or even sterilize, for shelf-stable products, all at below body temperature. Because AG’s high purity capability surpasses HPP, AG enables much longer shelf life than HPP can offer. AG equipment has substantially lower maintenance costs compared to HPP; and AG capital cost and operating costs are also lower than HPP.

AG is well positioned to be the low cost / high quality alternative to the expensive HPP process for purification of all flowable liquids. With AG-Continuous equipment for both extraction and purification, can be equipped with a CO2 recycling skid, to provide a carbon neutral footprint.

AG’s transformational, patented and proprietary extraction and purification technologies make Aqueous Gold uniquely positioned as the only technology provider able to offer processors many new market segment opportunities, and the only technology able to satisfy a rapidly growing customer demand for premium quality at a more competitive price.

Aqueous Gold Pilot Unit
The AG pilot is used to make production-quality extraction samples directly from customer’s production feedstock. It accurately demonstrates the pristine quality of non-thermal extracts produced by Aqueous Gold’s Continuous Supercritical CO2 technology, which extracts from liquid feeds or from solids in a slurry. The pilot will process up to 1.6 gallons per hour maximum of CO2 or feed liquid.