In this work, tangerine peel oil extraction is carried out by applying the supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO(2)) extraction. The effect of extraction parameters on extraction yield was dis-cussed, at particle size of 0.2-1.0mm, temperature of 35-55 degrees C, pressure of 10-30MPa and extraction time of 0-180min. And the response surface methodology (RSM) with a BoxBehnken Design (BBD) was applied to obtain the optimal extraction conditions. Based on this investigation, it is indicated that the optimized operation conditions for tangerine peel oil extraction was temperature 45 degrees C, pressure 14MPa and extraction time 147min, and the largest experimental yield of tangerine peel oil was 1.34%. Moreover, a gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis was used to determine the chemical composition of tangerine peel oil. The major compounds found in the tangerine peel oil were n-hexadecanoic acid (14.62%), linoleic acid (32.3%) and oleic acid (20.42%). Finally, two kinetic models were used to correlate the experimental results, and the parameters in both models have been optimized by simulating annealing (SA) algorithm. The results show that the overall average absolute relative deviation (AARD) values of model I and model II are 3.42% and 2.76%, respectively. The AARD value of model II is smaller and the application of model II is more extensive. The extraction parameters optimization, chemical composition analysis and kinetics modelling can provide theoretical basis for industrialization of extraction of tangerine peel oil. (c) 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.