The use of dense gases and supercritical fluids for the preparation of essential-oil microcapsules is advantageous for several reasons: product degradation or contamination with toxic organic solvents is minimized, in some occasions supercritical fluid processes allow for a enhanced control of product characteristics, a closed and inert system is used for the precipitation which can be easily made compliant with Good Manufacturing Practices, and moreover successful implementations in pilot scale indicate that supercritical pre- cipitation processes present promising technical and eco- nomical conditions for large scale production. Several super- critical precipitation processes such as PGSS, PGSS-drying and CPF have already been successfully used to produce essential-oil loaded microparticles. Even though the number of applications with essential oils studied with these proc- esses is relatively small, the satisfactory results with essen- tial oils as well as with many other similar liquids demon