Determination of Fatty Acids by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Electrochemical Detection Using A Ferrocene Derivatization Reagent

Abstract

New derivatization method using ferrocene reagents has been developed for the determination of fatty acids by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. Condensation of fatty acids with 3-bromoacetyl-1, 1'-dimethyl-ferrocene was effected in the presence of 18-crown-6 and potassium fluoride. The resulting esters showed the satisfactory sensitivity at +0.60 V vs. an Ag/AgCl reference electrode with a detection limit of 0.5 pmole. Also the high selectivity was obtained by using a twin electrode electrochemical detector. The proposed derivatization method was found applicable to the determination of fatty acids in human serum.