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

Scott Grierson, Vladimir Strezov*, Sargent Bray, Raffaella Mummacari, Luu Thai Danh, Neil Foster

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    42 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    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%.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)248-255
    Number of pages8
    JournalEnergy and Fuels
    Volume26
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 19 Jan 2012

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