Chromatography Forum

Hello,

Quick question. I used BSFTA (N,O-bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide) as a silylation agent (add some to the sample heat at 60oC for 3 hours) then blow off and run on the GC.

I am running out of BSFTA and have heard that I should change sylation agents/methods.

What agent/methods do people use out there?

or is BSFTA ok?

cheers for any help with this

Matt

There are SO many silylating reagents.

Sweeley reagent. BSA. and many others.

Why should you change? Cost, environmental issues? availability?

Would a different reagent work for your analyte?

Little information was given to give a good answer to the problem.

BSTFA is an excellent reagent, but there might be a better one for your needs.

Good luck,

Rod

What is the analyte you are derivatizing?

We add sample (in DMF or pyridine) to autosampler vial, add BSTFA, cap, shake and directly take to GC.

Only when we are reacting/displacing a hydrogen on a nitrogen do we actually heat the capped vials (15 minutes).

And we never remove BSTFA/solvent; in any means of doing: ours is much faster than yours.

Cheers guys for the answers.

Some one told me it was very hard to buy BSFTA in New Zealand. I better check this out properly first.

I use BSFTA to silylate hydroxy Fatty acids or FFA in my oil analysis. Been doing alot of these recently and going through my stores of BSFTA.

I will check if ccan get some in NZ

Cheers for the advice

There are also many other silylation agents similar to BSTFA that will work. Check Regis, Pierce, Sigma-Aldrich.