Supercritical fluids: Clean solvents for green chemistry

Supercritical fluids are becoming increasingly attractive as environmentall y acceptable replacement for organic solvents in chemical reactions and mat erial processing. This paper highlights some of the properties of supercrit ical fluids, especially supercritical CO2, which offer particular advantage s for the handling of polymers, metal complexes and the environmentally mor e friendly synthesis and manufacture of chemicals. The paper in: eludes som e of the researches in University of Nottingham and a number of recent revi ews which together provide a comprehensive introduction.