The solubility of lapachol in supercritical CO2 was determined at 40°C and pressures between 90 and 210 bar. Supercritical fluid extraction of lapachol and some related compounds by CO2 from Tabebuia avellanedae wood is compared to Soxhlet extraction with different solvents. A standard macroscale (100-200 g wood) and a microscale (~10 mg wood) experimental setup are described and their results are compared. The latter involved direct spectrophotometric quantification in a high-pressure autoclave with an integrated optical path and a magnetic stirrer, fitted directly into a commercial spectrophotometer. The relative amount of lapachol extracted by supercritical CO2 at 40°C and 200 bar was about 1.7%, which is similar to the results of Soxhlet extractions. Lower contents of alpha- and beta-lapachone as well as dehydro-alpha-lapachone are also reported.

A specially designed high-pressure cell was used simultaneously as extractor/autoclave and photometric cell in a Perkin Elmer Lambda 5 spectrophotometer. Based on this cell, a simple method was developed to determine the extractability of pigments by pure and by modified supercritical (sc) CO2. The method is demonstrated with curcumin from turmeric. With sc CO2 modified by 10% ethanol, the extraction yield for curcumin from two commercial finely ground dry turmeric samples was about 100%, measured by reference to the (complete) extraction of samples of the same charge with pure ethanol under standard conditions. Extractable curcumin content was from 1.8 to 2.5%, with three samples of turmeric of different origins.