Purification of Natural Products by Selective Precipitation Using Supercritical/Gas Antisolvent Techniques (SAS/GAS)

Abstract

Supercritical fluids offer considerable advantages for the isolation of natural products. Supercritical fluids can be used as antisolvents to precipitate selectively target compounds from a mixture and to remove impurities by the Supercritical Antisolvent technique (SAS). The present decade has experienced a considerable increase in the number of publications that apply this technique to natural extracts, especially for the isolation of polyphenols and carotenoids from plants and microalgae. However, the lack of a clear terminology and purpose adds confusion to the topic. The proposed review aims at defining a research field that consists in applying SAS to natural extracts for the purification of target compounds. To do so, we trace back the origin of the field, discuss the different terminology used to refer to such processes, and suggest appropriate terms for the process and for reported results. This work explores the scope of the topic by compiling all works published to date from a scattered literature, using all possible process terminologies for the search. The information given aims to highlight the most promising applications explored so far and possibly inspire further research.