The Supercritical Fluids Research Group at UNSW was founded in 1986 with the appointment of Professor Neil R. Foster to the faculty of the School of Chemical Science and Engineering.

 

Neil was recruited from the CSIRO where he had spent 8 years investigating reaction engineering aspects of high termperature supercritical fluid processes for the production of liquid fuels. Initial research was udnertaken by Honours students and progress accelerated when the first PhD student, Tony Wells, joined the group. The number of researchers increased rapidly, as did the diversity of projects that were undertaken.

 

The initial focus of research was on fundamental properties of SCFs such as phase equilibria, solubility, and physical property measurement as it was evident that such information was lacking in the published literature. Subsequent research involved utilisation of tailored SCF systems and co-solvent studies as well as some environmentally related investigations.

 

More recently the emphasis has been on novel applications of SCFs - particularly the formulation of novel drug delivery systems using a variety of precipitation techniques such as anti-solvent processing and RESS.

 

Funding for the group has been equallly sourced from government and industry, with some long-term research sponsors including Biochemical Veterinary Research P/L contributing towards in excess of $3 million over the past 11 years. The group's endeavours have resulted in 46 book chapters and papers in international refereed journals and 36 presentations at conferences and symposia.