Jojoba Oil - Has anyone successfully removed Fatty Alcohols from Fatty Acids prior to BF3 in FAME reaction?

Dear plowmase,

BF3/methanol will also form ethers with the fatty alcohols and you end up with a FAME/fatty ether mixture. With a simple sample prep step you are not able to separate these two groups. If you would do a classical saponification first you would have the fatty alcohols and the fatty acid salts, those are water soluble and wouldn't be retained by a C18 SPE cartridge whereas the fatty alcohols would have a certain retention. Reconstituting the aqueous and neutral made "acid phase" in methanol and following BF3 treatment would lead to pure FAMEs.

Another possibility could be a weak ion exchanger SPE to remove the acids from the alcohols and subsequent step to FAMEs.

Regards,

Norbert

Dear plowmase,

BF3/methanol will also form ethers with the fatty alcohols and you end up with a FAME/fatty ether mixture. With a simple sample prep step you are not able to separate these two groups. If you would do a classical saponification first you would have the fatty alcohols and the fatty acid salts, those are water soluble and wouldn't be retained by a C18 SPE cartridge whereas the fatty alcohols would have a certain retention. Reconstituting the aqueous and neutral made "acid phase" in methanol and following BF3 treatment would lead to pure FAMEs.

Another possibility could be a weak ion exchanger SPE to remove the acids from the alcohols and subsequent step to FAMEs.

Regards,

Norbert