Supercritical fluid considerations

The WAG process has been used extensively in the field, particularly in supercritical CO2 injection, with considerable success (22,157,158). However, a method to further reduce the viscosity of injected gas or supercritical fluid is desired. One means of increasing the viscosity of CO2 is through the use of supercritical C02-soluble polymers and other additives (159). The use of surfactants to form low mobihty foams or supercritical CO2 dispersions within the formation has received more attention (160—162). Foam has also been used to reduce mobihty of hydrocarbon gases and nitrogen. The behavior of foam in porous media has been the subject of extensive study (4). X-ray computerized tomographic analysis of core floods indicate that addition of 500 ppm of an alcohol ethoxyglycerylsulfonate increased volumetric sweep efficiency substantially over that obtained in a WAG process (156). 

The use of supercritical and hot water as a solvent is still largely experimental. Because supercritical technology is well known in the power industry, this use of water is likely to increase in the future. Corrosion control may be an important limiting consideration. General process economics are the second potential limit (see SUPERCRITICAL FLUIDS). 

A crystalline or semicrystalline state in polymers can be induced by thermal changes from a melt or from a glass, by strain, by organic vapors, or by Hquid solvents (40). Polymer crystallization can also be induced by compressed (or supercritical) gases, such as CO2 (41). The plasticization of a polymer by CO2 can increase the polymer segmental motions so that crystallization is kinetically possible. Because the amount of gas (or fluid) sorbed into the polymer is a dkect function of the pressure, the rate and extent of crystallization may be controUed by controlling the supercritical fluid pressure. As a result of this abiHty to induce crystallization, a history effect may be introduced into polymers. This can be an important consideration for polymer processing and gas permeation membranes. 

Supercriticalfluid solvents are those formed by operating a system above the critical conditions of the solvent. SolubiHties of many solutes ia such fluids often is much greater than those found for the same solutes but with the fluid at sub atmospheric conditions. Recently, there has been considerable iaterest ia usiag supercritical fluids as solvents ia the production of certain crystalline materials because of the special properties of the product crystals. Rapid expansion of a supercritical system rapidly reduces the solubiHty of a solute throughout the entire mixture. The resulting high supersaturation produces fine crystals of relatively uniform size. Moreover, the solvent poses no purification problems because it simply becomes a gas as the system conditions are reduced below critical. 

T. L. Chester and J. D. Pinkston, Pressure-regulating fluid interface and phase behavior considerations in the coupling of packed-column supercritical fluid chromatography with low-pressure detectors , ]. Chromatogr. 807 265-273 (1998). 

The development of phase transfer catalysis, of supercritical fluids, of ionic liquids and of course, new reagents, should also have considerable potential in the labeling area. Furthermore there is the possibility of combining these approaches with energy-enhanced conditions - in this way marked improvements can be expected. 

In supercritical fluid chromatography, fluids above their critical point are used as mobile phases. This chapter discusses the principles of operation, mobile phase considerations, parameters that can be adjusted in method development as well as an overview of instrumentation required and a few pertinent examples from current literature. Not everything can be illustrated, but the advantages of this diverse technology will be highlighted. 

A variety of modern instrumental analytical techniques have attracted considerable attention in the last decades as alternative separation and analysis methods with respect to HPLC. This includes, in particular, supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), which utilizes condensed carbon dioxide (above or near its critical temperature of... 

Enantioselective separation by supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) has been a field of great progress since the first demonstration of a chiral separation by SFC in the 1980s. The unique properties of supercritical fluids make packed column SFC the most favorable choice for fast enantiomeric separation among all of the separation techniques. In this chapter, the effect of chiral stationary phases, modifiers, and additives on enantioseparation are discussed in terms of speed and resolution in SFC. Fundamental considerations and thermodynamic aspects are also presented. 

Current work with supercritical fluids can also illustrate the importance of cosolvents. Cosolvent effects in supercritical fluids can be considerable for systems where the cosolvent interacts strongly with the solute. A correlation suggests that both physical and chemical forces are important in the solvation process in polar cosolvent supercritical CO2 mixtures. The model coupled with the correlation represents a step toward predicting solubilities in cosolvent-modified supercritical fluids using nonthermody-namic data. This method of modeling cosolvent effects allows a more intuitive interpretation of the data than either a purely physical equation of state or ideal chemical theory can provide (Ting et al., 1993). 

In many catalytic reactions, solid, liquid, and gas phases are involved, and the phase behavior often has a strong influence on mixing and mass transfer and consequently on the catalytic performance. Supercritical fluids, especially supercritical CO2, have gained considerable attention as environmentally benign solvents (e.g., (94y). The combined use of in situ transmission and ATR-IR spectroscopy together with video monitoring is a promising approach for elucidation of the behavior of a... 

The utilization of supercritical fluids for the processing of pharmaceuticals has attracted considerable interest in recent years. The products purity, the variety of the forms that can be produced, and the mild operating conditions are important features that make the supercritical techniques an important alternative to classical processes in the pharmaceutical field. 

---