What is it about?
While ordinary solvents require to be modified to recover the solute (e.g., vaporised), but they cannot perform any useful task until they return to the pristine state (e.g., liquid state), we have invented a novel way of using switchable-hydrophilicity solvents so that both states of the solvent (hydrophobic and hydrophilic, both liquid) are "useful" from the extraction point of view, each having its specificity toward the solutes contained in the extracted matrix.
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Why is it important?
After performing an extraction by a solvent you have to separate the extract from the solvent. Generally, you have to modify the solvent to obtain separation, and then you have to revert this modification to restart with a new extraction: the modified solvent cannot be used by itself and you waste half of the entire solvent cycle. With circular extraction, the full solvent cycle is used.
Perspectives
Exploiting the value of the many substances contained in natural matrices is cumbersome and costly. Circular extraction, for me, is a key step in learning the lesson and duplicating the success story of non-renewable resources for the benefit of the renewable resources era (if you are curious why, please also read DOI: 10.3303/CET1543221)
Professor Marco Bravi
Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Circular extraction: an innovative use of switchable solvents for the biomass biorefinery, Green Chemistry, January 2018, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c8gc01731j.
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