Biosynthetic Oils, Fats, Terpenes, Sterols, Waxes: Analytical Methods, Diversity, Characteristics

Abstract:

In the last century water distillation, the method of choice for many centuries to extract hydrophilic compounds from complex biological matrices, was more and more replaced by various chromatographic methods. At the same time chemical degradation steps to elucidate the structure of the compounds were replaced by physical methods. The current development goes to hyphenated instruments where multi-dimensional separations are combined with the subsequent structure elucidation of the individual compounds. The considerable improvements achieved in the analytical field led to the discovery and characterization of compounds never recognized before and allowed new insights in chemical ecology. Although essential oils, fats and waxes have been used for thousands of years, their main compositions have been revealed only in the last two centuries. Today more than 50,000 terpenes and about the same number of hydrocarbons are known. Since more sophisticated analytical instruments with higher sensitivities and resolutions become available each year their numbers are still increasing. With the growing numbers of compounds available new applications in various fields are realized. Although still in its infancy, this also includes a deeper understanding of the ecological functions of these hydrophobic compounds, which in itself presents many novel applications.