Question

A pharmaceutical company wants to extract an ingredient from pomace supplied by a certain food processing plant. What are two methods they might chose to use? How could different criteria and/or constraints affect the decision on how to extract the material? In three simple sentences, describe two methods, including one criterion and one constraint that would affect extraction methods.(4 points)

Answer 1

Two methods that a pharmaceutical company might use to extract an ingredient from pomace are solvent extraction and steam distillation. Solvent extraction involves using a suitable solvent to dissolve the desired compound, and an important criterion for this method is the solvent's selectivity for the target compound, while a constraint could be the environmental regulations regarding the use and disposal of solvents. Steam distillation, on the other hand, utilizes steam to vaporize volatile components, where a key criterion is the boiling point of the desired ingredient, and a constraint could be the need for specialized equipment that might increase production costs.