Gas chromatography of volatile fatty acids. Method involving separation from biological material by vacuum distillation.

A method is described for the quantitation of C2-C5 volatile fatty acids present in biological tissues. It involved recovery of the acids from their biological matrix by vacuum micro-distillation at room temperature, followed by gas phase separation of aqueous solutions on orthophosphoric acid-modified Phasepak Q columns. The subsequent gas chromatographic procedure resolved iso from normal isomers and showed a linear response for each volatile acid over the range 10-400 ng. There was no evidence of ghosting, isomer peak broadening, or peak tailing. Relative molar response values were shown to be linear with carbon number for all the volatile fatty acids studied.