Argentation high performance liquid chromatography of methyl esters

The technique of argentation chromatography with silver ion on a macroreticular exchange resin has been applied to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to separate fatty methyl esters and their isomers. Elution of methyl linolenate from the column and more rapid separation of dienes are made possible by programming column temperature from 25 to 70 C. Samples from ca. 0.025 μ to 8 μl can be analyzed on a 2‐mm id x 61‐cm column. Two 7‐mm id x 61‐cm columns in series have been used to separate 100‐μl samples into fractions for further analysis by capillary gas chromatography. Various forms of argentation chromatography have been widely used for analysis and for separation of compounds from oils and fats including hydrogenated soybean oil. This paper describes the application of argentation procedures to modern HPLC to obtain faster, more efficient separations. It also describes the application of temperature programming to give more rapid separations and to extend our previous method to include methyl linolenate and its isomers.