Isolation of palm tocols using supercritical fluid chromatography.

Crude palm oil contains 600 to 1000 ppm of tocols in the form of tocopherols and tocotrienols. These palm tocols have been isolated and analyzed in the past by various chromatographic techniques such as open column chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, as well as thin-layer chromatography. Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) has emerged as a more advanced chromatographic technique in recent years. The tocols present in palm oil are successfully isolated using SFC. Identification of these tocols is supported by various spectroscopic techniques such as 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and mass spectrometry.