A developed pre-column derivatization method for the determination of free fatty acids in edible oils by reversed-phase HPLC with fluorescence detection and its application to Lycium barbarum seed oil

Free fatty acids (FFAs) in edible oils are one of the most frequently determined quality indices during production storage and marketing In this study a simple stable and sensitive method for the simultaneous determination of saturated and unsaturated FFAs from edible oils using 2-(11H benzo[a]carbazol-11-yl)-ethyl-4-methylbenzenesulphonate (BCETS) as labelling reagent with fluorescence detection has been established FFAs are derivatized by BCETS and separated on a reversed-phase Eclipse XDB-C-8 column with a gradient elution The results indicated that all FFAs were found to be given an excellent linear response with correlation coefficients of >0 9994 The detection limits at a signal-to noise ratio of 3 were in the range of 0 22-1 06 ng/mL. When applied to Lycium barbarum seed oils the developed method showed good reproducibility The effect of extraction methods including supercritical CO2 and organic solvent extraction on the FFAs composition has also been investigated Meanwhile this method exhibits powerful potential for the trace analysis of short- and long chain free fatty acids from edible oils food-stuff and other complex samples (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved