MRA microeactions for lipid analysis

Many types of reactions have been performed on a microscale with the microreactor apparatus (MRA) system, which incorporates a modified soldering gun. Specific procedures developed for some typical reactions include bromination of olive methyl esters, silylation of castor methyl esters, homogeneous reduction of oleic acid, heterogeneous reduction of soybean methyl esters, several methods of methyl ester preparation from soybean fatty acids and saponification of soybean triglycerides followed by esterification. The reaction chamber of the MRA has been redesigned to increase its versatility and to reduce explosion hazards when diazomethane is used. Advantages of the MRA over other systems are less handling of sample, minimum hazards due to small sample size and direct injection of products into analytical instruments, such as a gas chromatograph or mass spectrometer.