Separation of Palmitic and Palmitoleic Acid and their FAMEs using Transition Metal Salts
Sayali Kulkarni
Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A and M University, 2117 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Sandun Fernando *
Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Texas A and M University, 2117 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Fatty acids (FAs) play an important role in physiological functions. Hence, separation and isolation of FAs is of great industrial importance. With the intension of finding out effective means of separating different forms of lipid constituents, two studies were carried out. In the first study, aqueous solutions of metallic salt(s) were brought in contact with mixtures of saturated (C16:0) and unsaturated (C16:1) fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs). In the second study, FA forms were used. The goal here was to investigate whether metal ions in their solvent state form strong enough complexes with either the saturated or unsaturated forms of FAMEs or FAs to selectively pull the ensembles out from a mixture. Results showed that although the FAME forms did not show a significant selectivity toward separation, saturated FA forms preferentially bound to select metal ions allowing separation of these from a mixture.
Keywords: Palmitic acid, palmitoleic acid, C16:0 FAME, C16:1 FAME, copper sulphate, silver nitrate, zinc sulphate, precipitation, complex formation.