Journal of Chromatography A 2007-03-02

Quantitative analysis of bacterial medium-chain-length poly([R]-3-hydroxyalkanoates) by gas chromatography.

Patrick Furrer, Roland Hany, Daniel Rentsch, Andreas Grubelnik, Katinka Ruth, Sven Panke, Manfred Zinn

Index: J. Chromatogr. A. 1143(1-2) , 199-206, (2007)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

Standard chromatographic methods for the quantification of bacterial poly(3-hydroxyalkanoate) (PHA) proved to be inappropriate for the analysis of medium-chain-length PHA (mcl-PHA). Transesterification catalyzed by protic acids is not quantitative for mcl-PHA under common conditions due to slow reaction kinetics and formation of side-products in case of functionalized side-chains. To circumvent these limitations, an improved method for the quantification of mcl-PHA by GC-FID was developed. Boron trifluoride in methanol was successfully applied to quantitatively methanolyse different mcl-PHA (recovery >94%). This novel method is well-suited for the analysis of purified mcl-PHA as well as for mcl-PHA in biomass.