The objective of this study was to investigate the extraction of lipids, for example, mono‐ and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) as well as carotenoids, from wet microalgae biomass using pressurized subcritical extraction solvents, which meet the requirements of food and feed applications. To demonstrate the effect of the solvent and temperature on the lipid yield, we chose two microalgae species, viz. Chlorella vulgaris and Phaeodactylum tricornutum, differing in their biochemical composition fundamentally. In case of P. tricornutum, ethanol showed the highest fatty acid yield of 85.9% w/w. In addition to eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the ethanolic extracts contained exceptional amounts of fucoxanthin (up to 26.1 mg/g d. w.), which can be beneficial to protect unsaturated fatty acids from oxidation processes and in terms of human nutrition. For C. vulgaris, a fatty acid yield of 76.5% w/w was achieved from wet biomass using ethyl acetate at 150°C. In general, an increase in the extraction temperature up to 150°C was found to be important in terms of fatty acid yield when extracting wet microalgae biomass. The results suggest that it is possible to efficiently extract both fatty acids and carotenoids from wet microalgae by selecting suitable solvents and thus circumvent energy‐intensive drying of the biomass.

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The rapid growth of the world population, the finiteness of resources on our planet Earth and the ongoing tendency towards urbanisation result in the need to question our actions and economic activities, also for industrial enterprises. A paradigm shift to decouple growth and resource utilisation is needed. By means of ultra-efficiency, factories are targeted, whose positive impact to their surrounding is optimised instead of only minimising negative influences. In the contribution, the concept of ultra-efficient factories and first tools for their implementation are introduced. Therefore, the term ultra-efficient factory is defined based on the state of the art. On this definition, spheres of activity for ultra-efficient factories under consideration of urban surroundings are determined. For the spheres of activity, criteria to assess the according maturity of companies are identified and aggregated into a comprehensive maturity model. The maturity model enables the determination of potentials for advancements of companies. To support the industrial application of the theoretic work, industrial best practices are determined and a visual tool is developed

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