Supercritical chromatography (SFC) uses a supercritical fluid as the mobile phase, which is formed when the critical temperature and pressure of the substance is exceeded. Supercritical fluid can also be used as an extraction solvent in supercritical fluid extraction (SFE). The Shimadzu Nexera UC is an on-line analytical SFE-SFC system combining supercritical fluid extraction and chromatography.

The properties of supercritical fluid are different from liquid and gas, which enables faster and more efficient separation of analytes with SFC compared to conventional liquid and gas chromatography. SFC offers an efficient alternative for demanding separations of, for example, chiral and isomeric compounds. In addition, supercritical fluid is an environmentally friendly and safe alternative to organic solvents.

The 48-slot extraction module allows automatic pre-treatment of multiple samples and automatic combination of analysis without manual intervention. Supercritical extraction is an efficient alternative to e.g. QuEChERS pretreatment. It is also possible to assemble an SFC system without extraction. In supercritical chromatography, UV or diode array detectors from liquid chromatography or mass spectrometry can be used as detectors.