title: Solid-phase microextraction coupled with liquid chromatography for determination of beta-carotene in food.
abstract: Beta-carotene in vegetables and nutritional products is analyzed using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with liquid chromatography (LC) to improve the speed of analysis and to reduce the consumption of organic solvents. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of this analytical method for beta-carotene determinations in vegetables and nutritional products are approximately 10% and 5%, respectively. The amount of beta-carotene was found to vary from 0.35 +/- 0.05 ppm to 76.5 +/- 6.9 ppm for several vegetables in Taiwan. This method was linear over the range of 0.4-40 ppm with correlation coefficients higher than 0.997. The experimentally determined level of beta-carotene in nutritional products varied from 3.8 +/- 0.2 ppm to 24.6 +/- 1.1 ppm following SPME-LC. The recoveries of beta-carotene for these measurements following SPME were all higher than 97% +/- 2% (n = 3). The detection limits of beta-carotene for this method were from 0.027 to 0.054 ppm. Conventional solvent extractions take approximately 4-6 h for extraction and reconcentration but SPME takes approximately 1 h. From several tens to hundreds of milliliters, organic solvents can be saved using SPME. SPME provides better analyses on beta-carotene than conventional solvent extraction for nutritional products in terms of speed, precision, simplicity, and solvent consumption.
authors.affiliation: School of Applied Chemistry, Chung Shan Medical University, 110, Sec 1, Chien-kuo N. Road, Taichung 402, Taiwan.
authors.forename: H Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: T F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bor Fuh
mesh_terms: D001628:Beverages / Q000032:analysis; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D019587:Dietary Supplements / Q000032:analysis; D004355:Drug Stability; D005504:Food Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D016014:Linear Models; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D052617:Solid Phase Microextraction / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors; D014675:Vegetables / Q000737:chemistry; D019207:beta Carotene / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D019207:beta Carotene