Application of the “fast” gas chromatography method for regular analysis of fatty acids in milk and dairy products

Abstract

The paper presents one of the approaches for identifying fatty acids using gas chromatography, which significantly reduces the analysis time, and is equally effective when compared with the traditional method of studying the fatty acid composition. The determination of the composition of fatty acids today is a guarantee of quality in identifying various conformations and modifications of milk fat, the bioactive properties of individual acids of the omega-3 and omega-6 families, etc. Moreover, this method is time-consuming, therefore, the goal of this work is to optimize the parameters of this methodology for quick and regular analysis of fatty acid composition in laboratories and dairy enterprises. The analysis of the fatty acid composition was carried out using two columns with different stationary phases. A comparative evaluation of the analytical characteristics was carried out on two capillary chromatographic columns: SP-2560 100 ? 0.25 mm ID, 0.2 ?m with a stationary phase FFAP (traditional) and a gas chromatographic column BPX-70: stationary phase 70% cyanopropylphenyl dimethylpolysiloxane, 10 m ? 0.1 m ? 0.20 ?m. Detection was carried out using a flame ionization detector. A mixture of Supelco® 37 FAME Mix fatty acid methyl esters and Sigma-Aldrich methyl decanoate analytical standard was used as the standard. For data processing, the NetChrom software was used, the composition of fatty acid methyl esters was calculated by the internal normalization method. The analysis time of the first column was 49.07 minutes, for the second 8.44, respectively. The use of a stationary phase column of cyanopropylphenyl dimethylpolysiloxane significantly reduced the analysis time when eluting a complex composition of fatty acids. The studies were carried out using modern analytical techniques and arbitration methods of analysis in the laboratory of technochemical control of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of the Dairy Industry. This adapted analysis method will be of interest to specialists in the field of laboratory research and processing enterprises.