From our previous work [11], we discovered that choline hydrogen
carbonate is soluble enough in organic compounds to allow the
neutralization of carboxylic acids without the addition of any
solvents. This reaction produces a choline salt of the respective carboxylic
acid, being water and carbon dioxide the only by-products (Fig. 1). Then, separation of the other organic components present
in the original mixture from the ionic compounds by scCO2 can be
achieved due to the virtual insolubility of must ionic compounds in
the supercritical fluid