Suitability of Modified Supercritical Carbon Dioxide as Solvent for polar substances

Abstract

As solvent supercritical carbon dioxide offers unique possibilities, like non-toxicity and therefore reduction of environmental pollution or access of low-temperature processing resulting in additional process safety. Therefore, knowledge to the influence of modifiers due to better solubility of polar substances is important for evaluating novel manufacturing techniques like the RESS- or GAS-process. Dynamic supercritical fluid extraction of PETN, nitroguanidine (NIGU) and RDX, respectively, with pure as well as with modified carbon dioxide indicated that all explosives except nitroguanidine were extracted though for RDX and 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazole the use of modifiers proved to be necessary. The results show the high capacity of modified supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent in RESS- and GAS-processes.