Applications of Supercritical Fluids in Latin America: Past, Present and Future Trends

Latin America possesses expansive natural resources, which has attracted scientists from several areas to study means of improving the use of these resources. Supercritical fluids have been used for such purposes in many technological applications. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of Latin America scientific findings on supercritical technologies. Web of Science and Scopus were used as reference databases to search for information dated from 2004-2013. The Latin-American studies were classified into 6 main areas: extraction & mathematical modeling (57%), emerging applications (15%), thermodynamics & fundamentals (9%), reviews & perspectives (8%), reactions in supercritical media (7%) and analytical applications (4%). A compilation of scientific documents from 1994-2003 indicates that supercritical technology has progress greatly over the last 10 years in the major scientific countries in Latin America, such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Colombia. These advances are associated with the development of new research subjects. Emerging applications, such as micronization and the encapsulation of nanoparticles, adsorption processes, gas sensors development, power generation and bioresidue hydrolyzation, are reported.