Statistical Analysis of the Collaborative Study in Support of the Official Method AOCS Ce 1i-07: Determination of Saturated, cis-Monounsaturated and cis-Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Marine and Other Oils Containing Long Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids by Capillary GLC

Analysis was done of the statistical results obtained by following recommended AOCS Collaborative Study Procedure M-86 to evaluate the performance of Official Method AOCS Ce 1i-07, which provides a gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) procedure for the determination of the fatty acid composition of oils containing long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). The method obtains relative between-lab reproducibility (%RSDR) values on the order of 5% or less for most fatty acids that are present above ~0.5% w/w; however, the reproducibility worsens dramatically for analytes below this threshold. Apparently, several participating labs had problems identifying small peaks in the sample chromatograms. They also had problems correctly identifying certain larger peaks that occurred in a congested area of the sample chromatograms, including the 9c-16:1, 9c-11c-22:1, and 6c,9c,12c,15c-16:4 fatty acids. Finally, several analytes with chain lengths between 16 and 18 and between 21 and 22 carbons that were present at moderate concentrations had worse than expected reproducibilities due to severe overlap of these analytes' peaks. A detailed inspection of the contributed data shows that the relatively poor between-lab reproducibility for analytes in this region is due to differences in the labs' chromatographic efficiencies and perhaps in their methods of quantifying highly overlapped peaks.