Phase equilibrium measurements of ternary systems formed by linoleic and linolenic acids in carbon dioxide/ethanol mixtures

This work reports phase equilibrium measurements for the ternary systems linoleic (acid + CO₂ + ethanol) and (linolenic acid + CO₂ + ethanol). The fatty acids present in the ternary systems were selected based on composition of banana peel oil extracted by supercritical CO₂ at 20 MPa and 313 K. The motivation of this research relies on the fact that these unsaturated fatty acids are recognized to play an important role in lowering blood pressure and serum cholesterol and because they are present in high concentrations in banana peel extract. Besides that, equilibrium data of these compounds are scarce in literature. The phase equilibrium experiments were performed using a high-pressure variable-volume view cell over the temperature range of (303 to 343) K and pressures up to 19 MPa. For both systems, only vapour–liquid phase transitions were visually recorded for all data measured.