| Abstract
| - Supercritical fluids can extract components from some matrixes (e.g., fat and flavors from food) aswell as infusing additives into synthetic polymer matrixes. To study the feasibility of infusing flavorsinto matrixes as a potential flavoring mechanism, a wide range of volatile flavor compounds wasinfused into a well-defined synthetic polymer (low-density polyethylene) using supercritical carbondioxide. The polymer was then extracted, and the amount of infused compound was determined.The effects of time, temperature, pressure, rate of depressurization, volatile concentration, andvolatile properties on the degree of infusion were studied. Infusion with supercritical carbon dioxideachieved much higher loadings of the polymer (0.01 to 6.87 mg/g LDPE, depending on the volatilemolecule being infused) compared to those achieved by static diffusion. Forty-five volatiles wereinfused, from which a model was developed to predict infusion as a function of certain physicochemical properties. Keywords: Supercritical fluid; carbon dioxide; SCF; modeling; QSPR
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