Pressurized liquid extraction of natural products

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the most important extraction methods based on pressure as a driving force for the retrieval of natural compounds from vegetal matrices. Selecting appropriate operating conditions and using the synergetic features of an optimized combination of solvents, pressure, and temperature, these new techniques prove their superiority over classical methods in terms of extraction yield and class of recovered phytoconstituents that have been found to have an extensive range of biological and pharmacological activities. The essential feature of these methods is the short processing time and low ecological footprint even comparing with other modern processes.