Gel permeation chromatography high-performance liquid chromatography combination as an automated clean-up technique for the multiresidue analysis of fats

The well-known and almost universally utilizable clean-up technique of gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and subsequent conventional silica-gel column chromatography was automated by an on-line solvent evaporation of the GPC fraction, followed by normal-phase HPLC separation. The ternary solvent system n-hexane-toluene-acetone (88:10:2, v/v/v) was used as the mobile phase which resulted in only one HPLC fraction for all relevant analytes. The HPLC column was cleaned automatically after each sample by backflushing with polar solvents. The recoveries and reproducibilities of 35 analytes (mainly organochlorine compounds) were in the range of 77-90% and 3-7%, respectively; the high efficiency of the HPLC separation provided very clean extracts for the GC analysis. This automated clean-up technique is routinely used for the multiresidue analysis of various fat-containing food and biota samples.