Separation of Carotenoids in Fruits and Vegetables by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

Several isocratic high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods, including both normal and reversed-phase, have been developed to separate provitamin A compounds and other carotenoids - α-carotene, β-carotene, stereoisomers of β-carotene, γ-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, canthaxanthin and lycopene- in fruits and vegetables. The normal phase systems used either an amino or alumina column with 99.5% isooctane and 0.5% tetrahydrofuran. Procedures employing reversed-phase used C18 columns- Vydac 201TP54, Vydac 218TP54, Zorbax ODS and NovaPak C18- with nonaqueous solvent systems comprised of various mixtures of acetonitrile, methanol, tetrahydrofuran and chloroform. All compounds were monitored at 470 nm or 450 nm. Each method has certain advantages and disadvantages for the analysis of carotenoids in fruits and vegetables.