Determination of short chain fatty acids in paper and cardboard with high performance liquid chromatography

Short chain fatty acids are the main origin of off-odours in unprinted cardboard. The fatty acids could be extracted from cardboard with ethyl ether, cleaned and concentrated by use of solid phase extraction, before being analysed by HPLC. Applying the present technique with solid phase extraction, precision and accuracy can be compared favourably with GC-determination.