An environmentally friendly process for the efficient production of fatty acid ethyl esters(FAEE)from wet microalgae is proposed.In this method,microwave-assisted transesterification of lipids using ethanol as the acyl acceptor was employed prior to the extraction with hexane to enhance the yield of FAEE obtained from the wet microalgae.Effects of different parameters,including reaction temperature,reaction time and ethanol dosage on FAEE yield were investigated.A high FAEE yield of 98.2%was obtained under the optimal conditions.Compared with the methanol-based process,the volume of alcohol needed for the microwave-assisted transesterification of lipids was reduced by 25%when using ethanol as the acyl acceptor.Polar pigments,which extracted into the ethanol from wet microalgae during microwave-assisted transesterification,were shown to promote the transesterification reactions significantly.Kinetic studies suggested that ethanol under microwave treatment can easily diffuse through microalgae cell wall and rapidly react with lipids inside the microalgae biomass.