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Flamethrowa
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They use supercritical CO2 industrially because of the necessity of preventing the destruction of the coffee beans...as they still must be sold.
But as caffeine is an alkaloid, wouldn't a simple acid/base extraction suffice? Maybe in conjunction CaCO3 to ppt the organic acids and tannins? At
least the product would then be consumable.
I'm not sure.
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JohnWW
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The only problem is that the caffeine extract from tea (a species of camellia) and coffee is not pure. If contains smaller amounts of other alkaloids,
especially derivatives of caffeine, and the related conmpounds theophylline and theobromine. The same extract from cocoa contains even larger amounts
of theobromine. They also contain tannins. There are several other plant species that contain extractable amounts of caffeine and related alkaloids,
e.g. maté and guarana leaves, and cola nuts, all from South America. How would one separate them on a preparative scale? Probably liquid
chromatography, I would think.
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