Abstract
In order to prepare lipids free of surface-active contaminants ad suitable for the measurement of surface pressure isotherms as general purification method has been developed involving preparative thin-laye chromatography. A detailed description of the procedure and blank experiments carried out with a monolayer trough are presented. The method provides a rapid purification of various classes of lipids, the whole procedure taking less than 1 day. It gives highly reproducible results, better than 2 Å
2 per molecule at any surface pressure. As an example of an application, the results obtained with a commercial sample of monogalactosyldiglyceride, a major plant lipid, are reported.
