Assessment of Bio-oil Extraction from Tetraselmis chui Microalgae Comparing Supercritical CO2, Solvent Extraction, and Thermal Processing

Microalgae have significant capacity to fix CO 2 and to become a major industrial biomass resource. Examining ways to innovate the microalgae cultivation and processing value chain includes a focus on the most efficient and economical means to produce a liquid oil fraction from the microalgae species. This work compares the use of organic solvent, supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO 2 ), and pyrolysis to assess their relative capacity to derive oil from the marine microalgae Tetraselmis chui . The SC-CO 2 technique was shown to be the least effective in natural oil extraction from T. chui . The results reveal that pure solvent extraction produces the most complete extraction of natural oil at just under 15% by weight. Subsequent pyrolysis of the post-solvent extraction residue and examination of the byproduct suggest that extraction of natural lipids prior to thermal processing increases the total quantity of bio-oil yield production by more than 11%.