Trimethylsilyl ethers chromatography

Davison, P. K., Young, R. (1964). Gas chromatography of carbohydrates the quantitative determination ofthe free sugars of plants as their trimethylsilyl ethers. Journal of Chromatography A, 41, 12-21. 

Certain synthetic heptitols that could not be separated by paper chromatography or by electrophoresis have been separated as their O-trimethylsilyl derivatives.404 The procedure of reductive, alkaline hydrolysis, much used in glycopeptide research, yields alditols that have been estimated as their trimethylsilyl ethers,59,405 and D-glucitol in mammalian nerve has similarly been determined.406... 

Derivative formation prior to chromatographic analysis has been used successfully. An unidentified component of urine was found which had a retention time very close to that of pregnanediol and which could not be separated from it by thin layer chromatography. The trimethylsilyl ether derivatives and the tri-fluoroacetate derivatives of the two compounds would not provide resolution only the acetate derivatives could be separated. 

In some instances, nuclear magnetic resonance techniques employing trimethylsilyl ethers have provided information on the composition of sugar solutions that could not be obtained by classical methods. Thus, the formation of D-galactofuranose during mutarotation was shown by gas chromatography of the trimethylsilyl derivatives of D-galactose (from the mutarotation mixture). The products were... 

Gas — liquid chromatography has proved a useful analytical technique in carbohydrate chemistry, particularly for methyl ethers and acetic esters. By forming trimethylsilyl ethers of relatively nonvolatile sulfonates of sugars, gas — liquid chromatography can be performed. 

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