Solid-Phase Microextraction (SPME) in the Fish Oil Industry

This article provides an overview of the use of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) in the fish oil industry to monitor oxidation products in marine oils. SPME was developed by Janusz Pawliszyn et al.1 in the 1990s and its applications in the field of pharmaceutical analysis, food analysis and environmental analysis have been extensively reviewed.2 By combining sampling and sample preparation into one step, SPME has been shown to provide many benefits, including speed, simplicity of operation, ease of automation, as well providing a solvent-free sample preparation method.

The fish oil industry is developing food supplements and functional food products that contain omega-3 fatty acids. The use of SPME to measure the quality of fish oil will be assessed in this review.