Author: Herr Dr. Amoneit
Last saved by: Gürbüzoglu, Meltem

2-Methyltetrahydrofuran as Alternative to n-hexane for the Extraction of Vegetable Oils
Anne-Gaëlle Sicaire, Maryline Abert Vian, Frédéric Fine and Farid Chemat, Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse, INRA, UMR 408, Green Extraction Team
Avignon, France
CETIOM, Technical institute for oil seeds
Pessac, France
anne-gaelle.sicaire@alumni.univ-avignon.fr

Currently, the most commonly used solvent for extraction of vegetable oils is n-hexane as it provides ideal functionalities in term of solubility. Nevertheless it is produced from fossil energies and has recently been classified as CMR 3 which means that it is suspected to be reprotoxic.
Finding new eco-friendly solvents has become from a sustainable and green chemistry point of view, a key issue for industrials in process improvement. 
2-Methyltetrahydrofuran (MeTHF) is a solvent produced from renewable raw materials (by the hydrogenation of products obtained from carbohydrate fractions of hemicellulose from various feedstock) [1], [2]. It is biodegradable, has a promising environmental footprint, good preliminary toxicology assessments [3] and easy to recycle.
 A first HSP (Hansen Solubility Parameters) study has been realized in order to evaluate and understand the interactions between the solvent and different compounds found in vegetable oils. The result of this study shows that MeTHF appears to be a potential alternative to n-hexane for the extraction of oils. An experimental study was then conducted with MeTHF.

[1]	Geilen F. M. A.; Engendahl B.; Harwardt A.; Marquardt W.; Klankermayer J.; Leitner W. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010, 49, 5510–5514.
[2]	Zheng H.-Y.; Zhu Y.-L.; Teng B.-T.; Bai Z.-Q.; Zhang C.-H.; Xiang H.-W.; Li Y.-W. J. Mol. Catal. Chem., 2006, 246, 18–23.
[3]	Antonucci V.; Coleman J.; Ferry J. B.; Johnson N.; Mathe M.; Scott J. P.; Xu J. Org. Process Res. Dev. 2011,15, 939–941.