Studies On Separation And Purification Of Taurine And EPA/DHA From Scallop Viscera

In this paper, separation and purification of taurine by water extraction andEPA/DHA by low temperature crystallization combined with urea inclusion fromPatinopecten yessonensis viscera as raw material was studied. The results indicatethat in the separation of taurine and EPA/DHA of high purity can be obtained. Therearch results can provide a theoretical basis for the effective utilization of scallopwaste and the development of taurine and EPA/DHA series for the manufacturing.Spectrophotometry was employed to detect the taurine. The factors that affect theprocesses of detection, including the amount of acetyl acetone, reagent consumption,heating time and cooling time was studied. The optimal spectrophotometric detectionconditions was obtained and the standard curve of taurine was established. The factorsthat affect the processes of water extraction from scallop viscera, including extractiontime, temperature and water volume was studied. The optimal condition was obtainedwith orthogonal experiment designed by single factors experiment.Soxhlet extraction was employed to extract total fat from scallop viscera,followed by saponification to obtain free fatty acids. Low temperature crystallizationwas employed to enrich EPA and DHA. The factors that affect the processes ofcrystallization, including solvents, cooling time, the amount of acetone andtemperatures was studied to enrich EPA and DHA preliminarily. In order to achieve amaximum content of EPA and DHA in the concentrate, urea inclusion was employedto enrich EPA and DHA followed by low temperature crystallization for further purity.The factors that affect the processes carefully, including urea-fat ratio, inclusion timeand temperature was controlled, and preliminary discussed separation mechanism ofurea inclusion process. Under the optimal conditions, the content of EPA and DHA inoils from scallop viscera was76.23%.Comparing the composition of fatty acids found that the content of EPA and DHA in scallop after processes of low temperature crystallization and ureainclusion,76.23%, was much higher than that in the crude-extracted total fats,37.93%,and in three different fish oil soft capsules, namely Joe s, longevity Kang, TangChenbeijian. Based on these results there are reasons to believe that, combination oflow temperature crystallization with urea inclusion is a promising method to obtainhighly concentrated n-3PUFA, mainly EPA and DHA, which can be used as apowerful alternative to traditional chemical separation techniques and can be ideallysuited for industrialization.