Dimethyl ether (DME), under near-critical conditions, can be used to extract lipids containing valuable fatty acids from wet biomass. In this work, DME, and a mixture of DME with a water–ethanol co-solvent, are used to extract fronds of the fern Cyathea dealbata, and the fatty acid composition of the extract was compared with the fern total lipids obtained by chloroform–methanol extraction. Extraction was carried out by circulating DME through a packed bed of milled undried fern material at pressure of 4.0 MPa, temperature of 58 °C, flow rate of 13.6 kg per kg undried fern material per hour, for 60 min followed by extraction using DME with addition of 5 wt% of a 70% ethanol in water co-solvent mixture until 572 g of co-solvent had been introduced. The total combined yield of DME and DME–ethanol–water extracts was 6.3 wt% of the fronds with the recovery of 88–93% of the major fatty acids (18:3n-3, 16:0, 18:2n-6, 18:1n-9). The remaining residue contained<7% of the fern total lipids. The extracts were slightly enriched in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 95% recovery), while a significant portion of arachidonic acid (ARA, 19%) remained in the residue. The DME and DME–ethanol–water extracts contained 6.9 and 6.1 mg/g of ARA, and 13.4 and 14.2 mg/g of EPA, respectively.

在接近临界条件下，二甲醚（DME）可用于从湿生物质中提取含有有价值脂肪酸的脂质。在这项工作中，DME和DME与水-乙醇助溶剂的混合物被用于提取蕨类植物Cyathea Dealbata的叶。，并将提取物的脂肪酸组成与通过氯仿-甲醇提取获得的蕨类植物总脂质进行比较。通过将DME循环通过压力为4.0 MPa，温度为58°C，每小时13.6 kg / kg干燥蕨类植物物料的研磨未干燥蕨类物质的填充床循环60分钟，然后使用DME进行萃取。加入5重量％的70％乙醇的水共溶剂混合物，直到引入572g的共溶剂。DME和DME-乙醇-水提取物的总合收率为叶的6.3 wt％，回收了88-93％的主要脂肪酸（18：3n-3、16：0、18：2n-6， 18：1n-9）。剩余的残基包含＜7％的蕨类总脂质。提取物略微富含二十碳五烯酸（EPA，回收率95％），而大部分花生四烯酸（ARA，19％）残留在残留物中。DME和DME-乙醇-水提取物分别含有6.9和6.1 mg / g ARA，以及13.4和14.2 mg / g EPA。