Technologies for extracting lipids from oleaginous microorganisms for biodiesel production

Recently, biodiesel has received much more attention. Soybean oil, rapeseed oil, palm oil and corn oil are primary feedstock for biodiesel production. However, biodiesel production from these traditional oil-rich crops is limited by land availability, climate, and environmental and social issues regarding the use of feed and food crops for fuel. Oleaginous microorganisms, including micro-algae, bacteria, yeast and fungi can be cultivated with high lipid contents and used as promising feedstock for biodiesel production. However, the high cost of biodiesel production using oil microorganisms has been the biggest obstacle for its industrialization. The process of biodiesel production from microorganisms involves many steps, of which the lipids extraction is the most important and costly. Therefore, searching for an effective and economical extraction system is critical. Various approaches of lipids extraction are discussed in this review, including traditional extraction procedures such as solvent extraction, pressing and solvent integrated extraction, as well as some new procedures.