Determination of Trace Lower Fatty Acids by Capillary Column Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

概要

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The determination of lower fatty acids is important in environmental and biological studies. In particular, volatile fatty acids with four up to six carbon atoms are strongly malodorous and their odor threshold values are fairly low. Therefore, determination of trace amounts of these acids is necessary. Many investigations on the gas chromatographic (GC) determination of lower fatty acids have already been reported.1-6) But the methods used are not sufficient for sensitive and selective analysis. The average detection limits for lower fatty acids on GC using a capillary column have been of nanogram level. Therefore, derivatization of these acids is very necessary for trace analysis because of the sharpness of peaks. However, methylation or trimethylsilylation of lower fatty acids is not so effective because of the high volatility of the products and the lack of diagnostic ions for selected ion monitoring (SIM). In order to overcome these problems, Burke and Halpern7) recently performed the butylation of lower fatty acids for mass spectrometry (MS). But the detection limits for five C4-C5 acids with their method were 30.4 to 52.1nM. In this study, lower fatty acids were converted to benzyl esters with benzyl alcohol and the esters formed were analyzed by SIM using a capillary column. The detection limits were around sub-picogram level and the selectivity was very high.
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