Abstract: A HPLC method was established to determine xylitol, sorbitol and maltitol in foods. The final chromatographic conditions are as follows: using amino chromatographic column of waters NH2 with refractive index detector, elution influent is 85:15 methane:water (V/V), flow rate 1.0 ml/min and injection volume 10μl . The repeatability relative standard deviations of this method is below 2% and the recovery is over 98%. A satisfied result is obtained under this chromatographic conditions, and the whole separation can be finished within 20 min. The results showed that this new HPLC analysis method is both correct and fast enough to be used to determine most kinds of foods containing these three sorts of sugar alcohols.

Key words: HPLC, xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, foods