• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.529-537
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• 1993

Several methods were examined for purification of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) from skipjack Euthynnus pelamis orbital tissue oil, a marine by-product, and a modified method for isolation of a high purity DHA was proposed. Skipjack orbital tissue contained $55.4\%$ of total lipid(TL), and DHA accounted for $23.7\%$ of the TL. Application of low-temperature crystallization and urea inclusion compound methods to the orbital fatty acid mixture resulted in increases of DHA concentrations to approximately $46\%\;and\;61\%$, respectively. These methods were suitable for large production of DHA with relative low purity because of the simple purification procedure. DHA of approximately $74\%$ in purity was obtained by silver nitrate aqueous solution method, but the method gave a very low recovery($<10\%$). Silver nitrate-impregnated silica column chromatography was suitable for purification of a high purity DHA(purity, $>98\%$ and recovery, $>90\%$) A modified method, silver nitrate-impregnated silica column chromatography combined with low-temperature crystallization(two step purication method) was proposed as the most effective method to obtain DHA with high purity($99.9\%$) from the skipjack orbital oil.