Separation of saturated and unsaturated fatty acid methyl esters by supercritical fluid chromatography on a silica column

Abstract

The factors affecting the retention of fatty acid methyl esters in supercritical fluid chromatography on silica columns were examined by using a series of saturated and unsaturated esters with detection using an evaporative light-scattering detector. Surprisingly, the retentions were effectively independent of chain length but increased markedly with increases in the number of unsaturated groups. These results suggested a strong interaction between the unsaturated groups and silanols on the surface of the stationary phase. An attempt to examine the effect of argentation of the column was unsuccessful.