Use of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC–CO2) for the extraction and fractionation of nutraceuticals offers numerous advantages, avoiding the use of organic solvents
and minimizing the degradation of bioactives. Optimal design of such processes requires fundamental knowledge of not only
the solubility behavior but also physical and transport properties of the SC–CO2 + nutraceutical mixture under high pressure. Determination of such fundamental data is challenging and requires specialized
equipment. Because of the nonpolar nature of SC–CO2, lipid-based nutraceuticals, including specialty oils and carotenoids, can be extracted with neat SC–CO2; however, recovery of phytochemicals like phenolics require the addition of a polar cosolvent. Ethanol is the cosolvent of
choice for nutraceutical applications. Extraction of nutraceuticals from a large number of plant materials has been studied
extensively for the optimization of various processing parameters. Further fractionation of the extracts or various other
mixtures is possible using fractional extraction, fractional separation, or column separation approaches to obtain bioactives
in concentrated form. Supercritical fluid technology offers the flexibility to extract and fractionate nutraceuticals by combining
different techniques and simplifying the overall process compared to conventional technologies, but feasibility of every application
needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Some applications such as the extraction of specialty oils and recovery of
tocopherols from deodorizer distillate have already reached commercialization level while numerous other promising applications
are under development around the world.