A supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) method has been developed for the extraction of lipids in bilberry. Experimental design was used to optimize pressure, temperature and extraction time using CO2 as solvent. Best SFE condition for total lipids was 450bar, 60_C and 45min. The SFE method was compared to conventional Bligh & Dyer (B&D) extraction. The amount of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) was found to be 4.840.06mg and 4.5640.003mg per g of the freeze-dried bilberry sample for the developed SFE and B&D methods, respectively, while the amount of total lipids was found to be 54.406.06mg and 65.700.67mg per g of sample for SFE and B&D, respectively. This discrepancy between FAME and total lipids could be explained by the presence of wax esters, sterol esters, carotenoids and phospholipids, as determined by supercritical fluid chromatography.
