Paper chromatography of unsaturated fatty acid esters as their mercuric acetate addition compounds

A method is described by which unsaturated fatty acid esters can be separated and identified by reversed-phase paper chromatography. The procedure is based upon the formation of the mercuric acetate addition compounds of the esters and the detection of the compounds on the chromatograms, using the sensitive color reaction with diphenylcarbazone. The application of this technique to the analysis of the component unsaturated acids of natural fats has been examined, and tetradecenoic acid in olive oil and hexadecenoic acid in linseed oil both formerly unidentified have been detected as the minor component acids by means of the method. The preliminary investigation on the absorption spectra of diphenylcarbazone complexes derived from the addition compounds has been made to bring the method into quantitative use.