Many reports ^1-9) so far-published on the compositions of fatty acids and fatty alcohols of sperm whale oil were based on fractional distillation, except one¹⁴⁾ in which gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) was applied to the analyses of sperm whale alcohol.
The present study was undertaken to establish the analytical method of fatty acids and fatty alcohols in sperm whale oil by GLC. Peaks in chromatogram were tentatively identified by comparison of their retention time with those of the synthesized reference substances including members with odd numbers of carbon atoms (Table 1), by behavior following hydrogenation (Figs. 2 and 3), and by use of a plot of logarithm of retention time vs. carbon chain length (Fig. 1).
The relative responses of methyl esters and acetyl esters for the thermal conductivity detector were calibrated by using a mixture of synthesized reference substances and were used for correction of peak area.
The compositions of fatty acids and fatty alcohols were determined on several kinds of sperm whale oil listed in Table 2 and the results are given in Tables 7 and 8. No marked difference was observed among the specimens from different places of catch, but the present data are a little lower in the concentrations of major components than those reported in the past, probably due to the presence of components with odd numbers of carbon atoms. Beaked whale oil revealed higher concentration of eicosenic acid and oleyl alcohol and the concent-ration of palmitic acid and cetyl alcohol was lower than that contained in sperm whale oil. Also the beaked whale oil contained docosenol which was found be absent in sperm whale oil.