Current extraction methods use flammable and/or chlorinated solvents such as n-hexane (Gouveia and Oliveira, 2009) or a mixture of chloroform/methanol (McNichol et al., 2012), which must be separated from the bio-oil using distillation. Moreover, the simultaneous extraction of undesirable polar lipids (e.g. phospholipids) and pigments interferes with the subsequent transesterification process (Jang et al.,2012), indicating a need for a solvent that is more selective for neutral lipids.