Abstract
In the present work, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of hemp (Cannabis sativa) seed oil at various ranges of SFE parameters is performed. These parameters and respective ranges are temperature (40–80) °C, pressure (200–350) bar, solvent (CO2) flow rate (5–15) g/min, particle size (0.43–1.02) mm and amount of co-solvent (ethanol) (0–10) % of solvent flow rate. Central composite design (CCD) suggests 32 experimental runs to perform through SFE. The obtained oil is analysed through gas chromatography to identify its fatty acids concentrations. The ratio of ω-6 linoleic and ω-3 α-linolenic fatty acids (ω-6/ω-3) is optimized through CCD to obtain the desired amount of 3:1 as this ratio is highly preferred for various health benefits. Ratio of ω-6/ω-3 is obtained in the range from 2.11 to 3.06:1 for all experimental runs. The effect of SFE parameters on this ratio is investigated. Further, cross-validation is peformed on the experimental data obtained for the concentrations of both fatty acids by jackknife and bootstrap resampling to authenticate the obtained data. Small value of standard deviation (~1), less standard error of the mean (SEM) (<0.8) and less variance coefficient (<0.11) confirms the validity of the obtained data. All the estimators’ values such as standard deviation, variance coefficients and SEM are observed in 95 % of confidence intervals.
