Description:
<p>The production of polyphenols from horse chestnut shells was achieved by newly designed systemcontaining three-column capable of realizing simultaneous extraction-distillation operations. The effects ofbatch and continuous operations, solvent and/or solvent combination usage on total polyphenol yield, type ofpolyphenol component present in the final product, and heat loss to the environment was investigated. Theresults showed that, high efficiency, capability of specific product design, continuous production advantages,the reduction of fresh solvent usage requirement, easier process control, reusability of pure solvent due todistillation are the possible advantages of this new design. And also, isolation of the system can minimize themain disadvantage namely heat loss by half. It was concluded that, since polyphenols in plants are frequentlyused in food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries due to their antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancerproperties, the specific solvent and design must be used for production of specific polyphenol component-richproducts. <br></p>