At Seattle no more work on fish oils
was undertaken until the early 1980's.
At that time considerable work was
undertaken by the Seattle Utilization
Laboratory to investigate the possibility
of carrying out fractionation of fish oil
fatty acids employing supercritical carbon
dioxide extraction. A very successful
fractionation is possible by this
procedure especially when partially fractionated
fatty acids are employed (Nilsson
et al., 1988). Such methods make
possible the preparation of eicosapentaenoic
acid (EPA) or docosahexaenoic
acid (DHA) at purity levels well over 90
percent. Two U.S. patents were awarded
to two staff members on this process
(Stout and Spinelli, 1987; Spinelli et al.,
1987).