A Simple Gas Chromatographic Determination Of Acetone And Beta-Ketobutyric Acid In Blood Serum By Means Of Head Space Gas Sampling

In this paper a head space gas sampling procedure is described for an accurate (standard deviation ± 1.6% when the acetone concentration in the liquid phase is 1.6 mg/100 ml) and simple micro-method for the gas Chromatographic determination of acetone. The advantages of this method are (1) that only the highly volatile compounds, emerging from the aqueous sample (0.2 ml) into the gaseous phase (± 40 ml), are injected into the gas Chromatograph, (2) that β-ketobutyric acid is determined, from the same serum specimen, after conversion into acetone by lieating and (3) that more than one head space gas samples can be withdrawn from the same serum specimen without a significant decrease of the acetone concentration in the gaseous phase. Also a tentative statement is made about the existence of a new enzvme (atic) activity in human blood serum: acetoacetate carboxylyase.