Simultaneous Separation and Sensitive Measurement of Free Fatty Acids in Ancient Pottery by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the analysis of the free fatty acid composition in ancient pottery with fluorescence detection was examined. Free fatty acids extracted from pottery were derivatized with 9-anthryldiazomethane and were analyzed using methanol-water as the mobile phase. Thirteen kinds of fatty acid were identified and well separated. Concentrations of individual fatty acids were estimated from an internal standard, p-butyl benzoic acid. The results correlated well with those from other quantitative analysis. These results indicate that the high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of fatty acids is a reliable method for measuring individual fatty acids in ancient pottery.