Development of pilot-scale, mobile prototype for essential oil extraction from Thai fragrant flowers using compressed subcritical fluid technology (2nd Year)

Jasmine flowers are among the most-utilized fragrant flowers in Thai culture that are subject to price fluctuation between its peak and off seasons. This flower is fragile and has limited shelf-life but gives off a wonderfully heady aroma adored by peoples worldwide. Vatin, a deep-tech startup company originated from a spinned off idea of a Ph.D. dissertation, has a proprietary right with its subcritical fluid extraction technology in converting this commercial flower into a globally-renowned, high value essential oil. The company’s strategic concept is to mitigate the price variation and bring a market stability to reduce the economical burdens of Thai flower growers. The company has invested in the project since the beginning to develop the prototype extractor and fine tune the hardware and software of the equipment. Up to this point, the extractor is approximately in its TRL4 and ready to launch the novel jasmine essential oil with high antioxidant activity and total phenolic content while maintaining high-quality, fresh jasmine fragrance. However, the research team has found a persistent pain point of the essential oil manufacturing concerning the issue of raw material logistic and proposed to transform its stationary nature of the process into mobile units in becoming Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) economy as stated in the BCG Economy Model initiative. This BCG model can disrupt the value chain of the jasmine oil producer so that jasmine waste can be reused in the farms as fertilizer and there are no more extra preservative chemicals, lead time deterioration and loss of freshness in the raw material logistic. This new mobile extracting process can offer customers world-wide with an unprecedented scent and quality of Thai jasmine. The same mobile concept can make ways to extract other exotic Thai fragrant flowers to world export markets. Not only are famers benefit from this novel idea but also the entire downstream industries (e.g., spas, hotels, food and restaurants, tourist industry, essential oil export etc.) can be an integral part of this new essential oil value chain.