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Adipocere is a postmortem decomposition product which forms from a body's adipose tissue. This study aimed to chemically demonstrate the process of conversion from adipose tissue to adipocere. Samples of adipocere were collected from pig cadavers that were allowed to decompose for varying intervals. Samples of soil were collected from beneath the cadavers and analyzed to determine the leaching effect of adipocere. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to quantify the fatty acid composition of pig adipocere. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used as a confirmatory test and to identify other components such as triglycerides and calcium salts of fatty acids. The study demonstrates the process of adipocere formation and the stages of formation through which the process passes using chemical techniques.

Current research investigating the effect of specific aquatic microenvironments on the formation of adipocere using domesticated pigs (Sus scrofa) has demonstrated the need for a fast and reliable method to separate and identify fatty acids present in adipocere. Adipocere is defined as a late-stage post-mortem decomposition product consisting of a mixture of free fatty acids (FFA), which have formed under favorable conditions due to the hydrolysis of triglycerides in adipose tissue. Whilst good separations of adipocere lipids have been achieved using TLC, this method is time consuming when processing large numbers of samples. This paper describes a rapid and simple method for the extraction, identification and quantification of FFA commonly found in adipocere, by solid-phase extraction (SPE) using aminopropyl disposable columns in combination with GC/MS. The recoveries of FFA associated with adipocere were all above 90%, with coefficients of variation below 10%, indicating that the technique was reproducible. The limits of quantification were registered at levels of parts per million. Standard curves were linear over the range of 50-1000 mg/mL, with all correlation coefficient values greater than 0.998. A marked increase in concentration of saturated fatty acids was observed during adipocere formation, ranging from 20 to 55% for palmitic acid, 13 to 23% for stearic acid and 2.8 to 4.1% for myristic acid. These results demonstrate the suitability of aminopropyl disposable SPE columns to efficiently and rapidly isolate FFA from adipocere prior to quantitative GC/MS analysis.

Adipocere is a soft white substance formed postmortem from fatty tissue in a decomposing body. In this preliminary study the formation of adipocere in soil was investigated for a number of animal species. Adipocere was formed from the fatty tissue of pig, cattle, sheep and rabbit. It was found that adipocere did not form from the fatty tissue of chicken or kangaroo in the time frame investigated. The issues being considered are relevant to the forensic examination of remains whose origin is otherwise uncertain or which are, in some way, related to human remains. Infrared spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry were used to characterise the composition of adipocere formed in the various species after different burial durations. Adipocere was observed to form at different rates among the species, but there was no distinct evidence of the fundamental composition varying between species.