Butteroil RM 164 : assessment of purity of triglyceride calibrants

Ten saturated and three unsaturated triglycerides have been controlled on their purity. Fatty acid and triglyceride analyses of the individual samples and of mixtures of the short chain respectively the long chain fatty acids have been clone. The gaschromatographic purity was judged to be acceptable for further use in the certification trial of BCR butterfat reference material RH 164. From the results of the mixtures it was concluded that none of the samples contains impurities of non-eluting materials. Some problems were found in preparing and handling the long chain fatty acid mixtures since some crystallization was observed, leading to increasing calibration factors.