Supercritical fluid extraction of bioactive lipids from the microalga <b> <i>Nannochloropsis </i> </b> sp.

Abstract

Marine microalgae are recognised as an important renewable source of bioactive lipids with a high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which have been shown to be effective in preventing or treating several diseases. For the extraction of oil from microalgae, supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) is regarded with interest, being safer than hexane and offering a negligible environmental impact, a short extraction time and a high-quality final product. Whilst some experimental papers are available on the supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of oil from microalgae, only limited information exists on the kinetics of the process. In such a contest, a mathematical model able to describe the kinetics of the SFE was applied to the recovery with ScCO2 of lipids from Nannochloropsis sp., a marine microalga commonly used in aquaculture and characterised by a lipid fraction with a high PUFA content. The aim of this paper was to examine the effect of operating conditions on the kinetics of the SFE, on process yields and on the fatty acid composition of lipid extracts.