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

Question

Working in small volumes - Jojoba oil breaks into free fatty acids and fatty alcohols after the -OH reaction. The fatty alcohols remain through the process untouched and end up in the chromatography. How can you remove the fatty alcohols so that you only see the fatty acid profile.

Dr. Know · Accepted Answer

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

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

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