Assessment of ionic liquid stationary phases for the GC analysis of fatty acid methyl esters

The gas chromatographic separation of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) on ionic liquid stationary phases was investigated. Seven commercially available ionic liquid columns were tested using a test mixture containing 37 fatty acid methyl esters. The influence of column temperature on the elution order was studied using five different temperature programs. Retention times were highly reproducible. Similar retention behavior was observed for the IL59, IL60, and IL61 columns. The peak pair C18:1 cis/trans was not baseline resolved on these columns, whose stationary phases are highly similar. C18:2 cis/trans, C18:3 n6/n3, and C20:3 n6/n3 were baseline separated on all columns. Baseline separation of the complete test mix was only obtained on the IL82 column using a heating rate of 5 K/min. In general, retention times decreased with increasing column polarity but unsaturated FAMEs were retained stronger compared to their saturated counterparts. Except for the IL59 column, retention crossover was observed when the temperature program was changed.