According to textbook definitions1, there exists no physical observable able to distinguish a liquid from a gas beyond the critical point, and hence only a single fluid phase is defined. There are, however, some thermophysical quantities, having maxima that define a line emanating from the critical point, named ‘the Widom line’2 in the case of the constant-pressure specific heat. We determined ...

In food and chemical industry, supercritical fluid extraction is an environmental-friendly separation technique, which plays an important role in biomaterial processing. In this paper, a dynamic optimisation model for supercritical fluid extraction is proposed by combining a transformation based genetic algorithm and the Peng-Robinson equation of state. The proposed dynamic model for the relati...

We have developed a method of forming platinum (Pt) nanoparticles using a metal organic chemical fluid deposition (MOCFD) process employing a supercritical fluid (SCF), and have demonstrated the synthesis of dispersed Pt nanoparticles on the surfaces of carbon nanowalls (CNWs), two-dimensional carbon nanostructures, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). By using SCF-MOCFD with supercritical carbon dioxi...

The use of polymers in the modern pharmaceutical industry is quite wide and needs a lot of different information. One of the more recent applications is the impregnation of a polymeric system with a drug using as carrier a supercritical fluid. This process is based on dissolving the active principle in a supercritical fluid, the supercritical solvent swells and reduces the glass transition temp...

In this first of two articles, we discuss some issues surrounding the dissolution rate enhancement of poorly-soluble active ingredients micronized into nano-particles using several supercritical fluid particle design processes including rapid expansion of supercritical solutions (RESS), supercritical anti-solvent (SAS) and particles from gas-saturated solutions/suspensions (PGSS). Experimental ...

Supercritical fluid extraction using carbon dioxide modified with methanol, methanol-diethylamine, or methanol-triethylamine was used to extract vinblastine from the aerial portions of Catharanthus roseus. An HPLC-electrospray ionization (ESI)/MS analysis method was also developed to quantify the alkaloids in these extracts. Of the supercritical solvents evaluated, carbon dioxide-methanol-triet...

The use of supercritical fluids as chromatographic mobile phases provides rapid separations with high efficiency, favoring their use in enantioselective separations. Supercritical fluid technology (SFC) is a versatile tool in the purification, enantioseparation and large-scale production of enantiomers of pharmaceuticals over comparable liquid chromatographic methods and is gaining popularity i...