I need to analyze the alkyl distribution of Methyl Ester Sulfonate to know the molecular weight of my sample. I tried to use gas chromatography to do this. My method was to reflux the sample first using HCl and then extract the methyl ester with Petroleum Ether. Then, I diluted the extract with n-hexane before injecting it into GC. However, the result was not as expected. Now I'm trying to dilute the sample in n-hexane without extraction but the sample cannot be dissolved. Do you have any suggestion? Thank you in advance.
You could try 1:1 acetone/hexane as your solvent and sonicating/vortexing your sample.
Other than that you could evaporate your pet-ether extract to dryness under N2 and reconstitute with hexane.
How was your previous result unexpected? If you have a lot of non-target peaks you may have to perform a clean up stage or use a more selective detector.
Luke Gymer thank you for your answer.
However, I did evaporate the pet-ether extract before adding n-hexane.
My chromatograms showed very small peaks that I am not sure if the methyl ester was successfully extracted.
I tried to change the pet-ether with diethyl ether however, the peaks were still very small.
Any another suggestion? Thank you very much beforehand.
Agnes Veronica Victoria I have found a technical resource you might find useful:
https://www.restek.com/Technical-Resources/Technical-Library/Pharmaceutical/pharm_A024
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