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Determination of the Fatty Acid Composition of Milk Fat by Dual Column Temperature Programmed Gas-Liquid Chromatography

Department of Dairy Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

ABSTRACT

Since the introduction of polyester substrates, the gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) analysis of fatty acid composition of fats and oils has become a routine matter. Milk fat is an exception because it is more complex than most other natural fats. Short-chain fatty acids starting with butyric present two problems in GLC analysis. The first problem results from the extreme volatility and water solubility of the methyl esters of butyric and caproic acids (1, 4). It is impossible to prevent loss of large proportions of these fatty acid methyl esters. In reports containing results of GLC analyses of milk fat, no figures were given for butyric acid. As this will affect the accuracy of the figures for the other fatty acids, and as butyric acid is a characteristic and important constituent, this way of reporting milk fat composition is clearly unsatisfactory. Several remedies have been proposed. Smith (6) standardized the methyl ester preparation as much as possible and incorporated into the peak area—weight per cent conversion factor a correction for loss of methyl butyrate.