The solvent that allowed for the higher oil recovery was octane. But this was also the solvent that took
the longer time to finish the extraction and one of the solvents with a lower recovery rate. On the other
hand, ethanol and hexane were the solvents that allowed for lower oil recovery, with respectively the
shortest and the second longer extraction time. Also hexane was one of the solvents with higher
recovery rate while ethanol showed the opposite result. Isopropanol showed a very good compromise
between the capacity of oil extraction (but with higher variability) and the solvent recovery, followed by
the mixture of hexane and isopropanol at a 50:50 (vol/vol) ratio that allowed for high oil extraction butwith a lower solvent recovery.
Considering the cost of the solvents and the energy consumption needed to perform the oil extraction
and the solvent recovery by distillation, the mixture 50:50 (vol/vol) of hexane and isopropanol was
chosen to perform further extractions.
It must be stated that part of the solvent loss was due to the solvent that was soaking the dried SCG
what could be reduced if the extraction were performed over the wet instead of the dry SCG.