Hydrothermal liquefaction is a process in which biomass is converted in hot compressed water to a liquid biocrude (Brown et al., 2010; Biller et al., 2012). Processing temperatures range from 200-350 °C with pressures of around 15-20 MPa, depending on the temperature, because the water has to remain in the subcritical region to avoid the latent heat of vaporiza­tion (Biller et al., 2012). At these conditions, complex molecules are broken down and repolymerized to oily compounds (Peterson et al., 2008). This procedure is ideal for the con­version of high-moisture-content biomass such as microalgae because the drying step of the feedstock is not necessary.