Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE)-An Overview

Among the different extraction techniques used at analytical and preparative scale, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is one of the most used separation technique, which mostly depends on critical temperature and pressure of supercritical fluid. This review covers the most recent developments of SFE indifferent fields (SFE applications), such as food science, natural products, by-product recovery, pharmaceutical and environmental sciences, during the period 2007-2009. The revision is focused on the most recent advances and applications in the different areas; among them, it is remarkable the strong impact of SFE to extract high value compounds from food and various natural products but also its increasing importance in areas such as heavy metals recovery, enantiomeric resolution or drug delivery systems.