[Jeffrey777]

I do these experiments out of my house, and so no, this is the best I can do.  I do have Sudan III reagent which selectively stains lipids, but other than that I don't know of a chemical test used to identify lipids.

[rolnor]

Thanks!  I know...there are quite a few possibilities.  I have to say that I was wrong to assume that they MUST BE fatty acids, only because that's what I was trying to make.  Confirmation bias is not a good thing in science, that's why I came here to subject my experiment to peer review.

I think mass-spectroscopy is the best way to start. As I understand you will, if it works, get many different lengths of fatty acids, this would be easy to check with LC-MS, off course you need to choose a good system, normaly this type of material will stick hard to a RP-18 column, this can be solved and you can check the system by running a reference sample with say decanoic acid up to oleic acid.

[Jeffrey777]

Thanks for your reply! I will look into that.