A MORE ACCURATE GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHIC METHOD FOR THE ANALYSIS OF BUTTEROIL FATTY-ACIDS BY ESTIMATION OF RELATIVE RESPONSE FACTORS

To evaluate the relationship between carbon chain length and the corre sponding relative response factors as defined for gas chromatography b y Scanlon and Willis, a mixture of six fatty acid butyl esters was ana lysed. There was a linear relationship between area and injected mass. For each of the six esters relative response factors were estimated a nd a regression line representing the best fit of the equation F = a b/(CN - c) was calculated (where F and CN are the relative response f actor and the number of carbon atoms in the fatty acid butyl esters, r espectively, and a and b are constants). The correlation constant was 0.995. From this equation relative response factors for other saturate d fatty acids can easily be estimated.