Possibilities and limitations of supercritical fluid extraction [SFE] as a sample preparation technique

This review focuses on different attempts to understand the process during extraction • sing supercritical fluids and on different approaches to obtain quantitative and selective extractions. Supercritical fluid extraction is a fast technique and, unlike other methods of extraction, allows several sample preparation steps to be incorporated within the extraction step. The authors consider the possible methods of optimisation of the SFE variables - fluid type, modifiers of the fluid, pressure (density), temperature, flow rate, sample size, analyte collection, and fixation - to help an analyst to extract the solutes of interest in a quantitative way while avoiding or minimising co-extraction of other matrix components.