The process Peels Improvement by means of Instantaneous Controlled Decompression (PIDIC) represents an evolution of the process of Instantaneous Controlled Decompression (DIC) that allows to use this thermal mechanical treatment for the extraction of essential oils and juices at high vitamin content and very low bacterial content from citrus fruits and other typologies of vegetables and fruits.

Compared to the standard DIC process, the differences are:

• the PIDIC treatment is applied only on whole fruits and vegetables, with their peel;
• the conditioning treatment is quicker;
• the pressure working ranges are surely lower.

The PIDIC process allows to obtain high quality essential oils, with yields comparable to the ones of the most efficient extraction systems (steam current extraction, supercritical CO2 extraction) but with energy consumption clearly inferior (till 10 times).

The obtainable juices with the PIDIC process have vitamin properties and organoleptic properties similar to the traditional fresh juice squeezing or similar to a centrifuged juice but are nearly without bacterial charge and so can be very well conserved in medium-long periods.