Patent ID: 8211308

Claim:
A method of separating polar lipids from intact algal cells, comprising: providing a wet algal culture comprising intact algal cells which comprise polar lipids; dewatering the wet algal culture by removing extracellular water to increase the solid content of the wet algal culture to between about 5% w/w and about 50% w/w to result in a partially dewatered wet algal biomass; mixing the partially dewatered wet algal biomass with an amphipathic solvent set, wherein the weight of the amphipathic solvent set is about the same as the weight of the partially dewatered wet algal biomass, and a hydrophobic solvent set to generate an extraction mixture comprising a heavier phase and a lighter phase, wherein the heavier phase comprises the amphipathic solvent set and partially dewatered wet algal biomass that comprises intact algal cells and the lighter phase comprises the hydrophobic solvent set and polar lipids; separating the heavier phase of the extraction mixture from the lighter phase of the extraction mixture; and separating the polar lipids from the lighter phase to generate a polar lipids fraction.