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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #70278
Title: A SUPERCRITICAL CO2 EXTRACTION METHOD FOR FAT ANALYSIS USING COMMERCIAL INSTRUMENTATION

Author
item Eller, Fred
item King, Jerry
item Snyder, Janet
item MCKEITH, F - UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
item STITES, C - UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Submitted to: Annual Meeting and Expo of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/28/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Food and Drug Administration defines total fat as the sum of all fatty acids expressed as triglycerides. Although there is currently no approved method for fat determination within this definition, current methods for the extraction of fats from meat generally require the use of relatively large amounts of organic solvents such as hexane or ether. Because solvents are coming under increasing scrutiny due to their environmental impact and costs associated with both purchase and disposal, we have developed supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) extraction as an alternative to solvent based extractions, for the analysis of fat from ground beef samples. The method consists of adding triundecanoin (C11 triglyceride) internal standard to a weighed meat sample followed by acid hydrolysis. The meat hydrolzylate is then filtered through a solid-phase extraction disk and the retained fats subsequently extracted by SC-CO2. The extracted fats are then transesterified to fatty acid methyl esters and quantified by gas chromatography. The SC-CO2 method was tested using two commercial extractors and compared to a solvent based extraction method. The solvent-based method and the SC-CO2 method (both extractors) gave equivalent results for percentage total fat, saturated fat, and cis-monounsaturated fat. This work demonstrates the SFE method is a suitable replacement for traditional organic solvent extraction methods and can be accomplished on commercial SFE instrumentation.