Supercritical Fluids as Solvents for the Future

Abstract

High pressure technologies involving sub and supercritical fluids offer the possibility to obtain new products with special characteristics or to design new processes, which are environmentally friendly and sustainable. Supercritical fluids are flexible tools for processing materials. Supercritical fluids have been applied to mass-transfer processes, phase-transition processes, reactive systems, materials-related processes, and nanostructured materials. In addition to extraction, application areas include impregnation and cleaning, multistage countercurrent separation, particle formation, coating, and reactive systems such as hydrogenation, biomass gasification, and supercritical water oxidation. Polymers are modified with supercritical fluids, and colloids and emulsions as well as nanostructured materials exhibit interesting phenomena when in contact with supercritical fluids that can be industrially exploited.