Abstract: A fast gas chromatography (GC) method with short micro-bore capillary column was developed for the determination of underivatized long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) in edible oils. Baseline separation of eight kinds of LCFAs (dodecanoic acid, tetradecanoic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, stearic acid, eicosanic acid, erudcic acid, behenic acid) was achieved within 2 min with high resolution performance. The linear correlation coefficients for underivatized LCFAs were higher than 0.988 and detection limits (at signal-to-noise of 3∶1) were 2.80-9.60 mg/L. The method is easy and low-cost and has the ability to achieve an accurate determination of the LCFAs in three edible oils.

Key words: edible oils , long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs), underivatization, fast gas chromatography (FGC)