Micromethod for the gravimetric determination of polar components in frying fats with ready for use columns

The polar components represent the artifacts in used frying fats, mainly formed by hydrolysis and oxidation processes. Their content is proportional to the loss of quality. They are determined by a column chromatographic/gravimetric method in practice. A modification of the official methods for their determination is described, which uses ready for use, disposable microcolumns (SPE-cartridges). The weighing, elution, and solvent evaporation are extremely simplified. The solvent evaporation can be synchronized with the elution in a special device instead of using a rotary evaporator after the elution step. The main advantages over the official methods are shorter analysis time and much lower consumption of chemicals, so the cost per analysis amounts to less than 1/5 and the solvent consumption is only 1/50 compared to the official method. Due to a better separation efficiency, the quantitative results are 6% (relative) higher in average than those obtained with the official methods and have the same coefficient of variation.