Microalgae wet extraction using N-ethyl butylamine for fatty acid production

Microalgae are considered a promising feedstock for the production of food ingredients, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products and biofuels. The energy intensity of drying and cell breaking of algae and solvent recovery afterwards hindered the route of algae biorefinery. In this work the influences of freeze drying and cell breaking to the extraction efficiency of crude lipid yield and fatty acid yield were investigated. Results showed that drying and cell breaking are not necessary for N-ethyl butylamine extraction, because good yields were obtained without. Crude lipid yield and fatty acid yield using N-ethyl butylamine were comparable with Bligh & Dyer extraction, making N-ethyl butylamine a candidate for further development of an energy efficient lipid extraction technology for non-broken microalgae.