Simultaneous Determination of Sugar Alcohols and Sugars in Functional Foods by Precolumn Ultraviolet Derivatization High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Objective To establish a method using precolumn ultraviolet derivatization coupled with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for simultaneous determination of erythritol, xylitol, galactitol, sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol, glucose and sucrose in functional foods. Methods Target sugar alcohols and sugars in food samples were extracted in water by ultrasonic method and then reacted with benzoyl chloride to form violet-absorbing products, which were separated on a C18 column with gradient elution using methanol and water as mobile phase. The experiment was performed using a flow rate of 1.00 mL/min, column temperature at 30 ℃ and detected wavelength at 232 nm. Results The linear correlation coefficients of all the derivatives were more than 0.999.The detection limits of the method were as low as 2.2 μg/mL. The average recoveries were 89.6%-117.0%, with intraday relative standard derivations lower than 5%. Conclusion This method is simple, inexpensive and easy to operate and it is suitable for the determination of sugar alcohols and glucose and sucrose in functional foods.