TECHNOLOGY

Phurua Natural Oils Company uses significant new technology for the extraction of very high quality fragrance and flavour oils, from all manner of fresh and dried bio-mass. It was invented by English scientist, Dr. Peter Wilde in the late 1980s.

The process is now fully developed to commercial scale and operates routinely and reliably every day, in our factory in Phurua.

The process offers major environmental benefits over traditional extraction procedures.
It uses no harmful or dangerous chemicals. The benign solvent employed (HFC 134a or 1,1,1,2 - tetrafluoroethane), is a liquefied gas. It was originally developed as the "green" replacement for CFC refrigerants (the use of which was curtailed under the Montreal Convention).

Our process does not damage either the stratospheric ozone layer or the environment in any way.
Our process plant is completely sealed when in use and no emissions of solvent are possible. The solvent is completely re-cycled and the same charge is used for many thousands of extractions.

The solvent is not a VOC ("Volatile Organic Compound"), unlike the gasoline (hexane) used in traditional extraction procedures.

Very little energy is consumed by this process. The process does not burn fossil fuels and hence produces no harmful flue gases or carbon dioxide. No water is consumed and no dangerous effluents (characteristic of other procedures) are created.

Operating at modest pressures, a little above atmospheric, the process is virtually hazard free. No flammable materials are used and no toxic solvent vapours are to be found in the workplace or in the
finished products.

Because the process operates entirely at ambient temperature, the products are of unsurpassed quality, having never been damaged by heat (cooked) nor vacuum stripped (as is the case when attempting to remove less volatile solvents such as gasoline and alcohol) nor exposed to acids (as with SCFE CO2 products).

Our flavour and frangance oils therefore retain their full compliment of those fragile, light, volatile components essential to the delicate organo-leptic properties of these products.

The European Union has approved this process for the preparation of natural flavouring oils for foods. This process is "Generally Regarded as Safe" ("GRAS") by the US FDA.

Our products are micro-biologically sterile and therefore contain neither pathogens (E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria) nor aphlatoxins.