Supercritical Fluid Extraction Using CO2: Main Applications and Future Perspectives

The main objective of this review is to approach and highlight the main applications of Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) through the search in scientific papers and patents. The principles of the technique and the identification of the main works developed in different areas, such as food science, pharmaceuticals, chemical residues, biofuel, and polymers are presented. Additionally, it presents the new and innovative combined methods where SFE has been used, as well as the perspectives of this technology and the profile of countries that own the rights for the use of SFE through patent registration. In this review a compilation of the data extracted from 196 different scientific article and 594 patent documents, from a universe of 2.314 documents was done, showing the improvement of the technique in the last years.