High Purification of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids

Abstract

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), including eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA), are of particular interest for the potential applications to functional diets and medication, which would require a high degree of purity.
Considerable effort has been directed to the purification of PUFA. EPA has been fully purified on an industrial scale.
The purification of PUFA is difficult due to the numerous complex processes required. A large scale purification still remains to be fully realized.
Esterified single cell oil containing high DHA and DPA content was purified in the present study by an industrial scale high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) plant using ODS columns. Highly purified DHA-E and DPA-E were obtained in a one-step process.