Abstrakt: |
Since 1972, Canadian rapeseed has been changing from high erucic acid types to low erucic acid types. In 1970, the Canadian Grain Commission instituted a program to monitor the fatty acid composition of rapeseed at the farm level, in railway carlot shipments and in export cargo shipments. Initially, in order to process up to 20,000 samples per year, a combined extraction and methylation procedure was developed in which methyl esters were analyzed within 5 min by manual injection on a nonpolar column. Since conversion to low erucic acid rapeseed types has been completed, other details of fatty acid composition have received more attention. In the system presently used, the rapeseed oil methyl esters are analyzed on a mixedphase column which gives good resolution of all of the major fatty acids. Through the use of a microcomputer-controlled autosampler, 50 samples can be analyzed per day. Reports are generated giving complete fatty acid composition as well as estimates of iodine value and saponification value. |