Abstract: Both the advantages of Supercritical CO₂ extraction（SFE-CO₂） for active constituents of traditional Chinese medicine and several factors affecting this extraction yield are discussed in this paper. The paper also summarized the advances in the application of supercritical CO₂ extraction in active constituents in for extraction of active constituents, such as essential oil, alkaloid, flavonoid, quinines, and glycosides from traditional Chinese medicine plants and expected the future of application of supercritical CO₂ extraction.