Abstract:

A high performance liquid chromatography with evaporative light-scattering detection (HPLC-ELSD) method
was developed for the simultaneous determination of 5 sugars including fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, lactose and
5 sugar alcohols inlcuding erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, and maltitol in foods. Extracts of samples were separated
on a Carbohydrate ES HPLC column at 30 ℃ using acetonitrile-water as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The
detector drift tube was kept at 95 ℃ and the nitrogen rate was set at 2.5 L/min. The results showed that the linear range of all
these analytes was 0.2–20 mg/mL. The precision of the HPLC-ELSD method was ＜ 5% in 6 replicate determinations, and
average spike recoveries were 91.53%–105.2%. Successful separation and sensitive and reproducible detection of the sugars
and sugar alcohols were achieved by this method within 30 min, thereby providing a promising approach for simultaneous
determination of sugar and sugar alcohols in food.

Key words: high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), evaporative light-scattering detector (ELSD), food, sugar, sugar alcohols