Several methods can be employed to extract oil from plant tissues. Microwave-assistant extraction (MAE) is broadly used to extract valuable components from Chinese herbs, vegetables and. It has proved to be effective, highyielding and energy saving. CO2 in its supercritical state has been used as solvent in supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) to extract nonpolar and thermally sensitive components from natural plants. SFE-CO2 offers the possibility of developing a process for oil extraction and purification, which
avoids the use of organic solvents and large waste streams. Products obtained are pure and have high
quality, but the system is complicated and expensive. Aqueous enzymatic extraction (AEE) has attracted more interest and has been a promising technique. It is environmentally friendly and does not produce
volatile organic compounds as atmospheric pollutants. But the processing time can be too long and enzymes available are limited.