IDOASIS has been actively participating in the European Project Newcotiana. In this project, IDS leads the task of the development and optimization of a biorefinery model using tobacco biomass to obtain valuable/useful by-products. The use of highly innovative and efficient extraction technologies is included as part of this task, with the purpose of increase extraction yields and obtain valuable fractions for the industry.
One of the most interesting extraction technologies are supercritical fluid extractions (SFE), allowing to reduce the use of solvents in the industry. Due to its interest, IDS has collaborated with the Food Science Research Institute (CIAL) for the application of supercritical fluids in the tobacco biorefinery model. The use of this techniques results in the obtention of tobacco leaves extracts with different characteristics than those obtained by conventional extraction methodologies, showing very promising results.
