Limonene is a common food additive with large market development potential

Limonene, also known as limonene, dipentene, and 1,8-terpene, is a common functional monoterpene compound that naturally exists in a variety of vegetables, spices, and citrus fruits. Limonene normally appears as a colorless or light yellow liquid with a fresh lemon scent. Limonene has strong volatility and high refractive index. It is an important industrial raw material and organic solvent and is widely used in spices, cosmetics, food, paints and coatings and other fields.

According to different molecular structures, limonene is divided into three isomers, and different isomers have different raw materials. D-limonene is a common configuration in nature and can be extracted from citrus essential oils such as citrus oil, lemon oil, and sweet orange oil. L-limonene mainly comes from plants such as pine needles and mint, and D,L-limonene mainly comes from plants such as pine needles and mint. Exists in a variety of volatile oils from yellow pine knots. Among them, L-limonene and D,L-limonene have very low content in natural plants and are difficult to extract.

Limonene is a commonly used flavor additive in food, beverages and spices. The American Flavors and Extracts Manufacturers Association has recognized limonene as a generally recognized safety level. my country’s “National Food Safety Standards for the Use of Food Additives” stipulates that D-limonene is allowed in food. Spices used.

According to the “2023-2028 China Limonene Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report released by the Industrial Research Center, as Residents’ environmental awareness, food safety awareness and health awareness have increased, and the market has an increasing demand for green, environmentally friendly, pollution-free, and pollution-free pesticide products. Botanical pesticides have become a focus of research in the pesticide industry. Limonene has a variety of biological activities such as insecticide, bactericidal, and herbicidal, and its main raw material is plants. It has natural and environmentally friendly properties. It has become one of the important sources for the development of botanical pesticides.

Limonene production processes mainly include steam distillation, organic solvent extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, biological fermentation, etc. Steam distillation is a traditional process in the field of plant extraction. It is simple to operate but the purity of the extracted products is not high. The organic solvent leaching method has the advantages of higher production efficiency and better product quality, but it is easy to cause pollution and puts enterprises under greater environmental pressure. Supercritical fluid extraction has high requirements on operation and equipment. It is a commonly used process for preparing limonene in laboratories, but it is difficult to achieve large-scale production. Biological fermentation is environmentally friendly and sustainable, but has higher production costs. The current mainstream production process in the market is organic solvent leaching.

Industry analysts said that the future development direction of China’s limonene industry will mainly focus on improving production efficiency, reducing costs, and developing new application fields. . As my country’s environmental protection policies become increasingly strict and residents’ environmental awareness gradually increases, biological fermentation will gradually become the mainstream production process in the limonene industry. In addition, with the wide application of limonene in various fields, the application value of limonene is constantly being developed, and the limonene market will have greater room for development in the future.