Supercritical hydrogenation and acid-catalysed reactions “without gases”

The high temperature catalytic decomposition of HCO2H and HCO2Et are used to generate the high pressure H2 and the supercritical fluids needed for micro-scale hydrogenation of organic compounds; our approach overcomes the problems and limitations of handling high pressure gases on a small-scale and opens the way to the widespread use of continuous supercritical reactions in the laboratory.