Microbial exopolysaccharides are polymers that show a great potential for biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering applications and drug delivery, due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability and their gelling properties. These polysaccharides are obtained from a microorganism culture with a relatively straightforward downstream process thanks to their extracellular character, and can be processed to obtain aerogels, fibers and micro- or nano-particles with conventional techniques. However, these techniques present several disadvantages in that they involve time-consuming processes and the use of toxic solvents. Supercritical carbon dioxide techniques can overcome these drawbacks, but their use for processing microbial exopolysaccharides is not extended in the scientific community. This review describes the most frequently used exopolysaccharides in biomedical applications and how they can be obtained, as well as the different supercritical carbon dioxide techniques that can be used for processing them and their challenges. Specifically, high pressure shows a great potential to process and sterilize exopolysaccharide biomaterials for biomedical applications (e.g. tissue engineering or drug delivery systems) in spite of the disadvantage concerning the hydrophilicity of this type of polymers.

微生物胞外多糖是由于其生物相容性，生物降解性和胶凝特性而在生物医学应用（例如组织工程应用和药物输送）中显示出巨大潜力的聚合物。这些多糖由于具有细胞外特性，可以通过相对简单的下游过程从微生物培养物中获得，并且可以用常规技术进行加工以获得气凝胶，纤维和微米或纳米颗粒。但是，这些技术存在一些缺点，因为它们涉及耗时的过程和有毒溶剂的使用。超临界二氧化碳技术可以克服这些缺点，但在科学界并未扩展其用于加工微生物胞外多糖的用途。这篇综述描述了生物医学应用中最常用的胞外多糖及其获取方法，以及可用于处理它们的不同超临界二氧化碳技术及其面临的挑战。特别地，尽管具有与这类聚合物的亲水性有关的缺点，高压仍显示出巨大的潜力来处理和灭菌用于生物医学应用（例如组织工程或药物递送系统）的胞外多糖生物材料。