Definition: Diamant (the process)

This supercritical CO2 extraction process was developed in 1997 in collaboration with the CEA's Supercritical Fluids and Membranes Laboratory. The principle is to selectively extract potentially contaminating molecules from cork using CO2 in a supercritical phase (a fluid state between liquid and gas, with the penetrating power of a gas and the extracting force of a liquid). Supercritical CO2 can solubilise most low molecular weight organic compounds. This makes it particularly useful for "undesirable" organic molecules such as chlorophenols and chloroanisoles - especially 2,4,6-trichloroanisole.