Super criticial carbon dioxide

scCO₂ meaning supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) cleaning is an efficient method to clean (decellularisation and delipidation), sterilise and impregnate bone grafts and also applied to a variety of other tissues. Unlike some conventional tissue processing and sterilization techniques, that rely heavily on chemical and biological agents that may affect the inherent structural and mechanical properties of the grafts.^{68, 69, 70} scCO₂ cleaning technology provides a mild and efficient platform to clean and sterilise tissue with limited use of chemicals. Research has shown that the use of scCO2 minimally affects the structural integrity of tissue grafts when compared to conventional processing techniques.⁷¹ The scCO2 treatment also removes medullary tissues responsible for adverse immune reponse.⁷²  The scCO2 based decellularisation step also poses a low risk of residuals as the carbon dioxide solvent is removed as a gas during the depressurization cycle. In addition to the viral reduction capacity of the scCO2 treatment, and can reduce the microbial load of processed grafts. The ability of scCO2 to deeply penetrate the graft’s microstructure offers an excellent vehicle for the deposition of compounds within the graft.