Chromatography Forum

I need information on derivitization of amino acids for GC/FID analysis. Specifically wanting to separate glutamic acid and GABA.

hello hoskinsh,
I worked with AA by GC once, for me it was a very difilcult analysis, I used HFBA (hepta fluorobutyl acid) like derivatizing agent, but you first to protect with Acetyl Chloride, in iso-butanol, in this moment I dont Have the Method here but I remember that the hydrolisis procedure was with HCL 50:50 and Phenol 3M, You have to be very careful and you have todry your sample very very well! for a succesfull derivation, and use dry nitrogen for that, there are other methos where you use Silanization, I know is not very usefull the think that I am telling you I will try to find the Article.
As you can see you also could use and ECD.

I thnk Phenomenex are marketing a kit for doing this. You could try there.

Also you can fin some information here:
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/Graphics/Su ... 0/4797.pdf

Mac Kenzie, SL. 1987. J. Assoc. Off. Anal. Chem. 70: 151-160.

As Victor said, Phenominex do produce a complete assay system for amino acids which is very quick (but not too cheap). They supply everything as a kit, including the column. Esterification and acylation by comparison are a little unwealdy and quite a bit slower in tems of prep time and sample run time, particularly if you aren't familiar with them.