Lipid Extraction from Plant and Muscle Tissues Using Supercritical CO2

Different cell and tissue structures of various biological materials as well as their moisture content play an important role in the extraction of lipids with supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂). All biological matter is made up of water, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and inorganic salts. Hundreds of components are organized within the cell structure where they interact with each other in various ways. When such a complicated system is placed in a high-pressure environment with the objective of extracting specific components using a supercritical solvent, the complexity of the system increases dramatically. Our understanding of the component interactions during supercritical fluid extraction is quite limited. Thus, structure of the starting material and location of the components of interest need to be examined to have a better understanding of the component interactions and how they affect extraction kinetics.