Characterization of waxes used in pictorial artworks according to their relative amount of fatty acids and hydrocarbons by gas chromatography

A study attempted to characterize natural waxes used in pictorial works of art was carried out by means of gas chromatography. The analytical treatment requires prior hydrolysis of the waxes to release the fatty acids (FA) (myristic (myr), palmitic (pal), oleic (ole), stearic (ste), araquidic (ara), behenic (beh), lignoceric (lig), cerotic (cer)) from the main esters of the waxes. The formation of volatile derivatives of the fatty acids was carried out by derivatization with ethyl choroformate (ECF). This derivatization reagent was chosen due to the speed, safety and quantitativity of the reaction. The analyzed hydrocarbons were n-eicosane, n-heneicosane, n-docosane, n-tricosane, n-tetracosane, n-pentacosane, n-hexacosane, n-heptacosane, n-octacosane, n-nonacosane, n-tricontane n-hentriacontane, n-dotriacontane, n-tritriacontane, n-tetratriacontane, n-pentatriacontane, main constituents of the waxes. No derivatization is needed to analyze the hydrocarbons. Ethyl ester derivatives and hydrocarbons are adequately separated by gas chromatography, identified by flame ionization detection and confirmed by mass spectrometry. To characterize natural waxes, peak area ratios of each fatty acids with respect to the palmitic acid and peak area ratios of each hydrocarbons with respect to n-heptacosane were calculated. The proposed method provides a good characterization of different waxes most frequently used in artworks, such as beeswax, carnauba wax and ceresin, and has been successfully applied to real samples. This is the first report on the application of ECF to the analysis of fatty acids in wax.