GC/MS method for determining carbon isotope enrichment
and concentration of underivatized short-chain fatty acids
by direct aqueous solution injection of biogas digester samples
In anaerobic digestion of organic matter,several metabolic pathways are involved during the simultaneous production and consumption of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) in general and acetate in particular.
Understanding the role of each pathway requires both the determination of the concentration and isotope enrichment of intermediates in conjunction with isotope labeled substrates.The objective of this
study was to establish a rapid and simple GC/MS method for determining the isotope enrichment of
acetate and concentration of underivatized short-chain fatty acids(SCFA) in biogas digester samples by
direct liquid injection of acidified aqueous samples. Sample preparation involves only acidification,
centrifugation and filtration of the aqueous solution followed by direct injection of the aqueous supernatant solution onto a polar column. With the sample preparation and GC/MS condition semployed,
well-resolved and sharp peaks of underivatized SCFA were obtained in a reasonably short time.Good
recovery(96.6–102.3%)as well as low detection (4–7 mmol/L) and quantification limits(14–22 mmol/L)
were obtained for all the 6 SCFA studied.Good linearity was achieved for both concentration and isotope
enrichment measurement with regression coefficients higher than 0.9978 and0.9996 ,respectively.The
method has a good intra-andinter-dayprecisionwitharelativestandarddeviation(RSD)below6%for
determining thetracer-to-traceeratio(TTR)ofboth[2-13C]acetate and[U-13C]acetate.Ithasalsoagood
intra– and inter-dayprecisionwithaRSDbelow6%and5%fordeterminingtheconcentrationofstandard
solution andbiogasdigestersamples,respectively.Acidification ofbiogasdigestersampleswithoxalic
acid providedthelowpHrequiredfortheprotonationofSCFAandthus,allowstheextractionofSCFA
from thecomplexsamplematrix.Moreover,oxalicacidwasthesourceofformicacidwhichwaspro-
duced intheinjectorsetathightemperature.TheproducedformicacidpreventedtheadsorptionofSCFA
in thecolumn,therebyeliminatingpeaktailingandghostpeaks.TheapplicabilityofthevalidatedGC/MS
method fordeterminingtheconcentrationofacetateandits 13C isotopeenrichmentinanaerobicdigester
samples wastestedandtheresultsdemonstratedthesuitabilityofthismethodforidentifyingthe
metabolic pathwaysinvolvedindegradationandproductionofacetate.