Supercritical fl uid extraction (SFE) was used for fractionation of grape seed to be applied in natural products of the food, cosmetic, or pharmaceutical industry. A two-step process was developed, consisting of conventional alcoholic extraction followed by SFE with carbon dioxide. The effects of pressure and concentration of co-solvent (ethanol) at constant temperature and solvent to feed-ratio were evaluated. The antioxidant activity of extracts and raffi nates was measured with the DPPH* free radical scavenging assay. It was observed that supercritical carbon dioxide can be used in the described process for fractionation of an alcoholic grape seed extract to obtain a product with noticeably high antioxidant activity and a second one with no antioxidant activity or pro-oxidant activity.Keywords: supercritical fl uid extraction, grape seed, Vitis vinifera, proanthocyanidins, antioxidants, DPPH Nowadays, scientists aim to obtain value-added products from waste materials. The investigation of new natural antioxidants, especially those of plant origin, has become essential due to the restrictions for synthetic antioxidants in food industry, such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), suspected to be carcinogenic (MOLERO GÓMEZ et al., 1996). On the other hand, pro-oxidant agents are promising in supplementary treatment of cancer patients (VALKO et al., 2007). Grapes (Vitis vinifera) are one of largest fruit crops in the world (JAYAPRAKASHA et al., 2003), and grape extracts are reported to have several positive effects on human health, including antioxidant, anti-infl ammatory, antimicrobial, anticarcinogenic, or cardiovascular activity, among others (NAKAMURA et al., 2003). Therefore, there is a growing interest in exploiting the potential of this plant product in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industry (JAYAPRAKASHA et al., 2003).Grape seeds are a by-product from the wine and juice industry, which is disposed of by the majority of wineries. Nevertheless, they are rich in phenolic compounds, which present positive benefi ts on the human health, such as antimutagenic and antiviral activity or inhibition of the oxidation of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) in vitro (FRANKEL et al., 1995). Polyphenols, and mainly proanthocyanidins, present the most important group of bioactive * To whom correspondence should be addressed. Phone: +36 1 4632202; e-mail: sz-edit@mail.bme.huThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited.