I thought I'd share another patent with you'all.  This patent filed in 1995
is called "Arachidonic acid and method for the production and use thereof,"
with the inventor being Kyle and the patent assigned to Martek Corporation.  I
assume this is the patented method for producing the AA that goes into infant
formula.  Many food grade oils are extracted by "washing" the oil from the food
with a hexane solvent.  Then the solvent is evaporated (desolventized) by
exposing the mixture to steam.  An interesting document to read on the extraction
of oil from the soybean is found at:
http://www.eap.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch09/final/c9s11-1.pdf

Likewise the fungal biomass from M. alpina is extracted with hexane but it
seems that there is also another step involving acetone.  One should read the
MSDS (material safety data sheet) on acetone--don't breathe it, don't ingest it,
etc.  I guess we should assume that acetone used in this process will
disappear in the steaming process.  By the way if one reads the whole process in the
patent they also use repeatedly something called antifoam Dow 1520-US because
the mixture does alot of foaming during the fermentation process.
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

patent # 5658767

"In a preferred embodiment, oil is extracted from the dried biomass by wet
grinding or percolation with virgin hexane. Solvent is usually added at a
solvent-to-biomass ratio of about 5:1 (w/w). After wet grinding, solids are
separated from the extract by decanting or centrifugation. It is advantageous to
maintain the solvent-containing extract (miscella) anaerobically to avoid oxidation
of the unsaturated fatty acid residues in the oil. Miscella is desolventized
to produce a crude fungal oil.

Crude oil extracted from fungal biomass with non-polar solvents can be
cloudy, particularly when the biomass is ground, because grinding may release fine
particles such as cell wall fragments and soluble polysaccharides.
Clarification of such cloudy oil may be accomplished by dissolving the crude oil in more
polar solvents, such as acetone or alcohol. In a preferred embodiment, crude
oil extract of fungal mycelia is further clarified by acetone
extraction/precipitation. An acetone miscella is prepared by adding acetone to cloudy crude oil
extract (preferably to a level of about 20% oil; i.e., about 4 volumes of
acetone per volume of crude oil), mixing thoroughly and allowing the mixture to
stand for a period sufficient for precipitation of the free particles (usually
about an hour room temperature). The oil-containing acetone miscella is
clarified by centrifugation and/or filtration, and then desolventized to produce
acetone-clarified fungal oil. Acetone-clarified fungal oil is preferred for
further processing (e.g., degumming, bleaching and deodorizing by conventional
techniques) because the fines produced during extraction of the fungal biomass will
interfere with the refining processes if not removed in the acetone step."




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