Desaturation

(1) The act, or the result of the act, of making something less completely saturated; more specifically, the percentage of total binding sites remaining unfilled; e.g., when hemoglobin is 70% saturated with oxygen and nothing else, its desaturation is 30%. Cf.: saturation (5) (2) The process or reaction of removal of two hydrogen atoms from a molecule, resulting in the formation of a double bond.